The Professor
by MarkTurner
Summary: A new, nameless Professor joins the school to teach a subject almost nobody has ever heard of before. How is Hermione involved in all this? Can the approaching evil be stopped? Superpowers, but not a walkover.
1. Chapter 1 Introductions

Disclaimer : I don't own anything in the world of Harry Potter, that's J.K.Rowling's job. The plot is mine though.

Chapter 1 : Introductions

The new professor sat behind his desk and surveyed the room. He had been privately tutored, so had never even seen the insides of Hogwarts before, and the sheer absurdity of the place still astounded him. From the moving staircases to the talking portraits to the massive Whomping Willow guarding the grounds, there was something unexpected around every corner. Of course he would never show how new he was finding everything. No, he was too well trained for that.

He'd spent the morning arranging the room to just how he liked it. The walls were slightly off-white, with almost no variation in colour to be found anywhere. The desks were all lined up in neat little rows, and unlike before he had arrived, the bookshelves were all cleaned and had their books all standing upright. The only personal touch to the room was a small muggle photograph, propped up behind a moderate pile of books on his desk. In it was the face of a smiling girl who could not have been any older than about eight.

He took a quick glance and the picture and smiled. He could hear his first class arriving, so he took a quick sip from his flask, and stood up to start his lesson.

* * *

"So what do you think Harry, another Umbridge?"

"Oh erm maybe," he replied. Truthfully he was hardly listening. It struck him as odd that Dumbledore would suddenly announce there would be a new compulsory subject for 5th years and up. He had to admit the new professor looked a little strange as well, even though he wasn't quite sure why. There was nothing so remarkable about his appearance. He had short brown hair, blue eyes and gave off the impression of being rather well off. Sitting next to Dumbledore his robes made him look slightly out of place; they were just plain sky blue. The other staff were all wearing a wide range of colours, except Snape, and this made the strange new professor look slightly… odd. He couldn't quite put his finger on it.

The new subject was called "Magical Basics" and was supposed to incorporate History of Magic with Defence against the Dark Arts, and a little bit of other subjects as well. Dumbledore had said that it wasn't very often anyone was able to teach it, and even Hermione had said that she hadn't heard of it before.

Harry was the first to enter the rarely used Charms classroom on the second floor, and was greeted by the careful sounding words of the new professor.

* * *

"Good afternoon everyone, if you'd kindly take a seat somewhere. Anywhere will do…"

Harry moved towards a seat at the front of the class and sat down, with Ron and Hermione sitting on either side of him.

"…I'll certainly have you all moving round eventually anyway. Right then is everyone here? Raise your hand if you're not… Nobody? Good, good. Lets get on with it then. I'm your new professor for Magical Basics. Hopefully this class will teach you all something new, and very different…"

Harry could see out of the corner of his eye that Hermione had already got her hand in the air.

"…from anything you learn in your other subjects. Yes, Miss err…"

"Granger, sir," replied Hermione, always the first one to raise her hand about anything. "I was just wondering what we should call you Professor…" She paused as if expecting him to continue with his surname.

"Just Professor will do. Or Sir I suppose. I rarely go by any other name these days. Any other questions?" He looked around the room a few times, and Hermione looked as though she were about to burst with another question, but managed to control herself.

"Perhaps if I start with a small demonstration it will help you to understand better what I am going to try and explain. Usually I will spend the first half of the lesson telling you about things, and explaining them to you, and then in the second half I will give you a chance to give it a go for yourself. There won't be a NEWT exam on this, and I won't be giving you any assignments to do, but I do expect you to at least try and practise these things occasionally. Anyway here we go."

The Professor drew his wand and pointed at one of the lights on the wall; "_Nox_."

It was still early in the afternoon so none of the lights were turned on, but they all suddenly flared up brightly, even more so than the light coming in through the windows. He waited for a few seconds before pointing his wand at another one of the lights and announcing, "_Lumos_".

The lights dimmed back down again and went out. The professor looked around the room at the puzzled faces, and permitted himself his second smile of the afternoon, remembering his own first thoughts when he was shown a similar thing all those years ago.

"Before you all start looking for hidden triggers and things I will tell you that all the magic you just saw came from me and my wand. You see with enough focus on a certain spell, it doesn't matter what you actually say at all. It is what you think that counts. I want you to all have a quick practise at this before we go any further. If you would all come and collect a small candle off the front here and light it."

He stepped back as everyone ambled up to the front, collected a candle, and stared to light them with the tips of their wands.

"Here, let me get that one for you Mr… Longbottom is it? _Stupify_." A flash of light burst from his wand and Neville's candle lit. "Right then, I want everyone to try and put out their candles, but you may only use the word '_lumos_'. Ok? Go for it."

He took a moment to take another sip from his flask and watch the class. To say they weren't having much success would be an understatement, but he fully expected it.

_Nobody ever manages to do it first time_, he thought, _especially with a spell so common as that. People are just too set in their minds about what they expect to happen_.

Granted, Hermione's candle was looking slightly darker than the rest, but it certainly not going out. Every few seconds there was a _phut_ and a small flame leapt into the air as a normal _lumos _charm hit a candle.

"Ok, ok. Stop there for a minute. You can't do it can you? I'm not surprised really, not many people would be able to at all, let alone on their first try. You all know what should happen when you cast that spell, so no matter how much you try and convince yourselves the candle will go out, it just won't. It goes against everything you have been taught. Even magic itself has a vague idea what should happen, but I will explain more about that next time. Anyway, here is something I think you should all be able to manage with a bit of practise. It is a spell I made up myself.

"_Bibble_."

With a quick wave of his wand, all the candles in the room went out. He paused for a moment and then continued.

"_Bibble_."

All the candles lit back up again, exactly the way they were.

"My favourite word that_, Bibble_. I wouldn't have gotten where I was today without it. I'm sure none of you will have used that particular spell before, so I want you to imagine it as a sort of toggle spell. Say it once, the light goes out. Say it again, and the light comes back. You will still need to think very clearly about what exactly you want to happen, but you should have a little more success this time. If you still haven't got it before the end of the lesson then I want you to make sure that you can before next time. You simply must grasp the basics before we can even hope to do anything more complicated.

"Right, off you go, and I'll walk round and see if there is anything…."

* * *

"_Bibble_."

The cold, harsh word echoed around the empty dungeon.

"_Bibble_!" shouted Snape again, pointing his wand and a single candle on his desk. "_Bibble, _Damn you, _Bibble_!"

The candle just remained there unchanged on the desk, its flame fluttering about slightly, almost mocking him. Snape slammed his wand down on the desk and glared. If the candle had been a student it most certainly would have been trembling by now under one of his famous glares. But it wasn't. It was just a candle, so it continued flickering away merrily in the relative darkness.

_Curse that Dumbledore and his ideas. 'It would be most useful Severus…', '…rest of the staff should become aware…', '…the new professor…' All this foolish wand waving is giving me a headache. I must have a potion for that somewhere._

The sound of 'Bibble' could be heard echoing well into the night.


	2. Chapter 2 Essences

Disclaimer : I don't own anything in the world of Harry Potter, that's J.K.Rowling's job. The plot is mine though.

Chapter 2 : Essence

The Professor sat in his usual place behind his desk and watched as the class entered the room one by one. These were rapidly turning into his favourite classes of the week. He had seen most of them around outside class and he was beginning to get a good idea of what they were like.

_Such a wide range of abilities and talents. Should be an interesting year, especially with that…_His thoughts were interrupted when he noticed Ron sporting a large black eye. _I wonder what happened to Weasley. I didn't notice that yesterday. If I didn't know better, I would almost say he looks proud of it! Ah well, none of my business._

If anyone were to ask McGonagall how he got it, she would certainly have said that Malfoy gave it to him in an unprovoked attack, earning the Slytherin a week of detentions. In reality Ron gave it to himself tripping over Neville's bag, but as there were no Slytherin witnesses it was all too easy to blame it on Malfoy.

"Ah good to see you all back here again, lets get started shall we? I can't stress enough how useful it is to be able to master what I showed you last time. To be able to cast curses and hexes at your opponent with random words would be enough to put off even the best of duellers. Does anyone here know what _Lumos _actually means?"

Parvati raised her hand and answered, "Sir, it means _light _in Latin doesn't it?"

"Yes that's quite right", he went on. "But how old do you think magic is? It is certainly older than English, in fact in reality it predates even the Romans, but very few records exist for further back than then. What do you suppose they used for the light spell? They just said _lumos_. It would be just like us saying _light_. But as you know, that wouldn't work. If you tried to teach the first years to use the word _light _to light their wands they certainly wouldn't be able to do it straight away. Here is the big question. Why?"

He left the question hanging for a few moments.

"I'll tell you why. Tradition. For thousands of years people have been using the same word over and over again, so now magic itself almost associates that word, with light. As I showed you last time it is possible to concentrate on an idea yourself to make it work, but without the easy routine that is engraved into magic, it makes spell casting a lot harder. That's one of the reasons why new spells are always so difficult to create. A person has to imagine absolutely perfectly in their mind what they want the spell to do, and to associate the words to the effects. Most people prefer to continue using Latin words as using everyday ones can sometimes be confusing."

He took another moment to take a drink from his flask, which as always was right there on his desk. He could see Hermione was waving her arm in the air again.

"Yes Hermione?"

"Professor, Sir, erm, does that mean that magic has a memory? That it's alive?"

There were a few sniggers from the back of the class about 'Cruelty to magic' but either the professor couldn't hear them, or he chose to ignore them.

"You can think of it that way if you like, but technically no. It isn't alive. I prefer to think of magic as a big jumble of paints all mixed together. Using spells creates patterns in the paint, and the more a spell is used, the more often this pattern appears. It isn't a very easy thing to imagine actually, so perhaps you would be best just accepting what I say for now.

"Right, I want you all to have a go at something. Nice and simply, I want you to use the _lumos _spell to light your wands. As you do so I want you to concentrate as much as you can on how you feel and what it feels like. I'm sure your Professor Flitwick would kill me for saying so, but I want you to gradually let your technique get worse and worse. Start mumbling, waving your arms around, standing on your head if necessary, and take careful note as to what feels different. In theory it should be possible to perform the spell no matter what you do, as long as your mind stays focused."

With that the professor made an action like lighting a match along with a strange psst sound, and his wand lit.

"See? Off you go then, and I'll come round and watch what you are doing."

With that the class began the lighting and putting out of their wands. The whole thing looked like a set of complicated Christmas tree lights. After a while the various actions started to get more and more extravagant, with some people even standing up so they could move about more. The professor moved over to the first desk, Neville's, and tried to get some idea of his aura.

He had picked up this skill during his short stay in India, and allowed him to get a general idea of what someone's personality was like. He couldn't completely see auras, that was a skill people were born with, but with practise he could get a rough idea.

_Hmm well, not all that much power there I'm afraid. Hard working, and very determined though. I'd better not discourage the boy._ "Yeh, that's not bad there Longbottom. I reckon you could do quite well if you put your mind to it. Try using your left hand as well, it's always useful to be able to use both hands if you're in a hurry."

He wandered over a few seats back to where Malfoy was sitting. He'd heard many conflicting things about Draco, it seemed either people strongly liked him, or couldn't stand him. _Hmm, about normal for someone his age really. There is something more sinister here though as well. I reckon he has quite a lot of secrets this one._ "That's pretty good Malfoy, you still need to apply yourself to it fully or you won't get anywhere. Nobody can unless they really care or believe in what they are doing."

Malfoy looked around the room smugly, but nobody else seemed impressed. He went round another few students, saying fairly similar things. Harry was next. Even before he got close to Harry he could sense the magic that was coming off him. It was almost like a constant light coming off him, but of course nobody could see it. Only the professor was aware of it.

"You've got yourself quite a lot of power there Potter. And… something deeper. Lots of pent up emotion. I reckon you should be able to use that to your advantage. Perhaps in a few weeks time I will show you how you can. You might find it a lot easier to perform some of the new things. When you next try and cast and outwards spell, really try and put your feelings behind it. See if you can tell any difference."

The last person for him to check on was Hermione. He just walked over to her desk and stood there and looked at her for a lot longer than any of the others. _How odd. There only seems to be half an aura here. That can't be right, nobody has half a… oh, hold on a minute, there it is, just much fainter than the rest. I wonder why that could be? Surely not. I haven't seen anyone with an aura like that since…well there is no harm in trying. I had better check that out sooner rather than later anyway._

Hermione was just starting to feel uncomfortable under his gaze when he spoke, "Hmm, I don't think you quite believe all this do you? You seem to have somewhat of a block. I reckon I could help you with that if you wanted. Meet me in that Room of Requirement Dumbledore told me about first thing tomorrow morning after breakfast, I gather you know where that is?"

Hermione nodded, "Yes Professor."

The professor turned back to the class. "Well that's about it then for today, just try and take extra notice of what magic feels like when you are using it in other subject. Don't deliberately use any sloppy techniques though, or Flitwick will have my head. He was a fierce dueller at his peak, almost a match for me." He winked and moved back to sit down at his desk.

* * *

Down in Greenhouse One, a small and rather large teacher was bouncing up and down in frustration, waving her wand around frantically. Nothing was happening.

"Why?" she said to nobody in particular as jumped up and down some more. "Why do I have to do this? I'm perfectly happy using my wand, without the need for all this madness."

She waved her wand about some more, causing a few sparks to jump off and set fire to one of the small plants nearby.

"Arrg!" Professor Spout shouted in frustration, "I'm going to have Dumbledore's head for this!"


	3. Chapter 3 Awakening

Disclaimer : I don't own anything in the world of Harry Potter, that's J.K.Rowling's job. The plot is mine though.

Chapter 3 : Awakening

Hermione stepped cautiously through the door to the Room of Requirement and looked around. The room was as plain as she had ever seen it, much like the professor's office. She hadn't fully understood why she had been asked to come here this morning, but curiosity overcame her and she decided to see what it was about. The professor had stressed to her that it was completely optional.

_That's funny, I thought he was going to meet me here? Oh wait, there he is._

He was sitting on the floor at the far wall of the room, his eyes closed and his back perfectly straight. As Hermione approached he opened his eyes. They were slightly unfocused, as if he was concentrating on something else entirely, but he voice remained totally clear.

"Are you sure you want to do this Hermione, it may be quite difficult."

_Difficult? _Hermione thought, _Sounds interesting. I thought he was just going to make me believe in this magic?_

"Yes I'm sure Professor, what do you want me to do?"

The professor considered this for a moment before continuing, "Basically I want you to throw everything you have at me. Forget your wand, point your hands at me and try to focus anything you can towards me. No, no. Not yet. Go and stand over there first," he pointed to a spot over the other side of the room, about six or seven meters away, "right, you can start when I say the word _now_. It might help to shout at me as well or something. Ready?"

Hermione nodded slightly, not quite sure what to do, or what she was getting herself in for. The professor took a deep breath and announced, "Now."

Hermione raised her arms and shouted rather half-heartedly, "Ahhh."

"Now."

"Ahhh," she shouted again slightly louder this time.

"Now!"

"Ahhh!" This time she really did look like she put some effort behind it, but nothing appeared to happen. The professor considered this for a moment.

"Hmm. Perhaps just trying to expel this block won't work. Close your eyes for a moment and try to think of something that really annoys you, or something you hate. Good things rarely ever come of these sorts of thoughts, but they do sometimes have their uses. When you have something, nod your head."

Hermione thought about all the things she disliked.

_Quidditch, Umbridge, Harry's relatives, Malfoy… Malfoy, yes that could work. All those things he has said to Harry and me time and time again, thinking he is better than everyone else. He makes me so angry!_

She was about to nod her head when another thought popped into her mind.

_Voldemort. Voldemort ordering the deaths of entire families just for fun. Women and children killed needlessly to please that maniac's ego._

She nodded her head.

"Yes, that's a good one. Do not be alarmed but I may help you out a little here. I want to you to keep those thoughts in your head and this time just go when you are ready."

Hermione closed her eyes and imagined what it would be like during one of Voldemort's attacks. She could hear the screaming, the flashes of green light, the wailing of infants as their parents were cut down mercilessly. She could smell the burning of the buildings; feel the warmth of the flames against her face. As this went on she could feel something inside her, something almost bursting to get out. As she continued to think she began to give off a very slight glow. When she didn't think she could take it any more she raised her hands and shouted,

"AHHH!"

This time something certainly did happen. The air between her and the professor shimmered along like a wave. As it hit him, it forced him back a step. He could feel the power behind the wave and it was all he could do to stay on his feet, he knew most people couldn't have. But he wasn't finished yet. Hermione was standing in front of him breathing heavily, and he raised his wand towards her.

"Professor, wha… ouch!" Hermione looked down at her hand to see a small red burn. "Profe.. ooouch!"

It was much worse the second time. The curse hit exactly the same place, causing some of the already damage skin to peel away, and start to bleed.

"You useless girl!" The professor bellowed, all the time continuing to fire burning spells out of the end of his wand, "You call that magic? I must have been wasting my time dealing with a mudblood like you. I have seen more magic on the bottom of a cauldron. I am going to make sure you fail miserably in every exam you take this year."

He shot a particularly nasty spell at her shoulder, causing some of her robes to burn away leaving a rather painful burn. All the time he carried on using Legilimens to make her see the images of Voldemort she had seen before. He knew he was being tough, but he had no choice.

Hermione couldn't take any more. He hands and shoulder were in agony, and blood was flowing freely from her wounds. She couldn't get the images of the killing curse out of her mind. The screaming and the burning was just too much. She felt something snap insider her, and she drew every ounce of energy she had and focused it on the professor. There was a distant rumbling sound, and she screamed.

* * *

Being so soon after breakfast, there were still a fair number of students in the Great Hall. Suddenly everything on the tables began to shake. Cups and goblets tipped over, plates of food went crashing to the floor, and some of the lights began to flicker out. Pandemonium broke out as students and teachers alike tried to figure out what was happening. Only Dumbledore headed off quickly to the Room of Requirement.

* * *

The screaming sounded much like the wail of a Banshee. Hermione was standing there in the middle of the room screaming as loud as she could, while a massive bolt of energy shot out of her arms towards the professor. It would have hit him right in the chest, if it were not for the fact that the bolt was easily bigger than he was, covering most of the back wall. So powerful was it, that he was thrown back and suspended at least a foot off the floor. The wall around him was crumbling away, and bits of plaster and stone were falling off the ceiling.

There was a loud tearing noise, and the whole room flickered, as the powerful charms placed on the room by the Founders themselves were ripped apart, and the room became no different from any other. As suddenly as it started, the screaming stopped, and the professor crumpled to a heap on the floor, unmoving. Hermione collapsed as well, too weak to stand and shocked by what she had done. She couldn't take her eyes of the blue robed figure across the room.

Just then Dumbledore hurried in and glanced around. If he was surprised by what he saw he didn't show it. He just knelt down beside Hermione.

"Miss Granger. We need to get you to the hospital wing. Come on, it'll be all right."

"But, but professor…" she stammered, still staring at the far wall.

"Hermione look at me. Don't worry about the professor; he'll be just fine. He knew what he was doing. It's you I'm more concerned about, come on."

And with that he half led, half carried her out of the room and off to the hospital wing, without another glance behind him, leaving the other occupant of the room still lying there motionless amongst bits of plaster and what was left of the far wall.

* * *

A/N : Eventually, all will be explained. 


	4. Chapter 4 Explanations

Disclaimer : I don't own anything in the world of Harry Potter, that's J.K.Rowling's job. The plot is mine though.

Chapter 4 : Explanations

Hermione woke up later that afternoon lying on a bed in the hospital wing, feeling as good as new, if perhaps a little tired. It hadn't taken long for Madam Pomfrey to put bandages around her burns and stick her into bed with a sleeping potion. Those sort of injuries could be healed fairly quickly, and even the slight scaring there would have gone by the next morning. She slowly sat herself up and looked around, seeing the only other occupant of the room. The professor.

He was lying on top of the quilts of a bed along the other side of the room, still wearing his robes and shoes. He looked exactly as he had done first thing that morning before he had gotten injured, apart from a small cut just above his left eyebrow. As Hermione got out of bed and crossed the room towards him, ignoring the fact that part of the shoulders of her robes were still missing, he opened his eyes.

"Ah Miss Granger, how are you feeling? I must apologise for…"

"But professor are you alright? I thought…" she stammered, not even noticing that she had just interrupted a professor.

"Yes, yes I'm perfectly fine. I knew what I was getting myself in for, you just caught me a little off-guard that's all. Seriously though I am sorry for putting you through all that, I really didn't mean any of the things I said. It was the only way to get you to use enough power to get through your block." The professor glanced down and noticed her robes. Hermione noticed as well and tried to hold the pieces together.

"Fix them," he said.

"But I don't know how! I will have to go off to the library and…"

"Don't worry about that just fix them. Close your eyes and imaging them fixed, or perhaps imagine them being fixed. Try to focus on the same feelings you felt this morning. Not the anger part, just the energy that you had inside you."

Hermione closed her eyes and tried to image the gap in her robes getting smaller and smaller, and as she was doing so, she started to feel that same tingling sensation as she ha before, though only slightly this time. After a while she opened her eyes and looked down. It wasn't fixed completely, but the hole was definitely a lot smaller and less frayed around the edges.

"Not bad, not bad at all for a first try," the professor announced, "here let me."

He waved his arm towards Hermione and her robes quickly fixed themselves up as good as new. He swung his legs out of the bed and made his way over to her, as she was now swaying slightly on the spot, still tired after using so much magic.

As he led her back to her own bed, she asked him, "Professor, who are you? I mean, I've tried looking in Famous Wizards and Witches of the 20th Century, and even in Hogwarts, A History and there was no reference in there to anyone who could perform magic like you can…"

Hermione sat back down in bed, and the professor sat down on a chair next to her and sighed.

"I suppose I do owe you an explanation. I can't tell you everything of course, but I will say what I can. This must remain just between the two of us though, I don't very often tell people about myself, not even to Dumbledore. He suspects things, but I haven't told him."

Hermione nodded eagerly.

"Well, where to begin. What do you think is the difference between a muggle and a wizard?"

"The ability to use magic?" she asked.

"Well yes, but why?" She didn't say anything so he carried on, "You see, everything comes down to what muggles call DNA. There are actually 5 different genes that determine if you are to be a wizard or not. Muggles don't have any of them. A particularly weak wizard will have one, two is about average, three is a strong wizard, and very few people have four. Your headmaster is one of them, and so was Merlin. Have a guess how many I have."

"All five…?" she whispered.

The professor chuckled, "No. There probably hasn't been a wizard who has had all five since well, Zeus probably. He was mightily powerful, if a little big headed. Certainly not evil though thank goodness. That would have been a problem. Anyway, no, I have none."

"None?" she asked, "But then how…?"

"Well you see I wasn't born with none, I had three. I was a slightly strong wizard, but nothing overly special. It was my mentor who changed me. How or why will have to remain a secret for now. Another time I will certainly tell you, and everyone else, but for now it is best kept quiet."

"Professor?" she asked.

"Yes?"

"How many do I have?"

He smiled, "I have no idea. Before you seemed to be using three, which is why you were above average in all your classes, but the block meant you weren't using your full potential."

"So I could have four, like Dumbledore? I…I can't be as powerful as Dumbledore!"

"It's not a question of power, but more the amount of magic you have at your disposal. Flitwick only has two, yet as you know he is an expert in charms and duelling. His power comes from years of experience and practise. Yet if it came down to amount of magic, he wouldn't be able to beat someone such as yourself, or even Mr Malfoy who I think has three."

She looked up at him and for a second saw what he looked like before, just lying there on the floor unmoving. She opened her mouth to speak but he carried on, sensing her next question. "I have remarkable powers of healing. I've left this cut on my face deliberately so as to not arouse too much suspicion. Dumbledore knows I'm quite capable of looking after myself, that's why he brought you here first and then came back looking for me afterwards. It has become quite well known that you were the one who caused that explosion upstairs. It could be felt all the way to the Great Hall. Madam Pomfrey has been shooing people out of here since then."

"All the way to the Great Hall…" she muttered almost to herself. She looked up the professor again, "Professor, who are you?"

He smiled again as he got up to leave, "I've already told you that Hermione. I don't have a name; it comes with the job. You had better get some rest now. I think Madam Pomfrey wants to keep you here until tomorrow morning. I'm sure one of your classmates will bring you a change of clothes."

"Thank you professor," she muttered. But he had already gone.

* * *

After classes, Harry and Ron were the first people down to the Hospital Wing to see how she was.

"Blimey Hermione," said Ron, while stuffing his face with a packet of sweets that had been left for her, "everything started shaking. We thought there was an earthquake or something. Even Snape looked concerned. Are you sure you're alright?"

"Don't worry about it Ron I'm perfectly fine. I just have to stay here to rest. It's the professor who I was more concerned about it. He took the full force of it."

"Did he say anything about who he was?" he asked.

Hermione thought for a second about telling them, but she stopped. It really wasn't her secret to tell. She shook her head.

"Well," Ron continued, "it couldn't have been all that bad. I mean, the Room of Requirement looked perfectly fine."

_Looked perfectly fine…_Hermione thought.

"Anyway, we had better leave you to carry on resting," said Harry. "McGonagall said she would drop by later on and give you a copy of the homework from today, so you needn't worry about that."

They both got up and left, leaving Hermione to the relative silence of the Hospital Wing. It was never completely silent at Hogwarts. There were always the sounds of ghosts moaning and portraits muttering, and occasionally the grinding of one of the moving staircases.

_How on earth, _She thought to herself before drifting back off to sleep, _could someone who shouldn't be able to use magic at all repair a room that was created by the Founders? And how did I repair my robes!  
_


	5. Chapter 5 The Unknown

Disclaimer : I don't own anything in the world of Harry Potter, that's J.K.Rowling's job. The plot is mine though.

Chapter 5 : The Unknown

* * *

"So," he continued, "can anyone think of a spell that it may not be possible to say other words for?" He looked around the classroom. 

Things had been progressing just fine over the last two weeks. Almost everyone was able to perform the simple spells using different words, and the professor was preparing the class to move onto the next topic. After a while Neville timidly raised his hand.

"How about item specific spells Sir? Like _accio_?"

"And why would that be Longbottom?" the professor countered.

"Well err, how would magic know which object to summon?"

"A good idea I suppose, but no," the professor explained, "You see, it doesn't matter what you say, it's what you have in your mind that counts. Watch." The professor pointed his wand towards Neville's desk. "_Accio book!"_

Neville's quill quickly shot out of his hand and landed neatly in the professor's. He handed him it back.

"It doesn't look like anyone has any other ideas, so I will give you an example. The Killing Curse is one. Obviously we can't test that out, or people would be trying to put me in Azkaban," only Hermione seemed to notice the word 'try', "but I can at least explain why."

Everyone's gaze was fixed firmly towards the front of the class. There was no whispering or messing around. Everyone wanted to hear what the professor had to say.

"Part of what makes that curse so effective is fear. People all over the wizarding world live in fear of those two terrible words. It wouldn't be anywhere near as effective if people had never heard of it, in fact it might not work at all. I think that if someone was to truly, without any shadow of a doubt, believe that they wouldn't die, then they would be fine. The curse doesn't actually harm you in any physical way; it rips out your soul."

"But Sir," Dean had raised his hand and had started speaking, "my Great Aunt Doris was killed by Death-Eaters in the first war. She was a muggle, and she certainly wouldn't have known that the killing curse would kill her…"

"Good thinking there, but this leads back to something I have already explained. Magic itself can remember. Many, many people have died from the Killing Curse over time, and so simply not knowing what will happen is not good enough. You would need to actively believe that it wouldn't harm you. Most people wouldn't have that sort of focus; even the slightest doubt in the back of your mind and you'd be dead. Your experiences tell you it will kill you, so believing otherwise is next to impossible. Of course this is purely theoretical, and not something that anyone would ever test out."

There were a few nervous chuckles from around the class, but the professor carried on.

"And now, I would like to announce a small competition we will be having soon. It will give you a chance to show off some of your skills you have learnt in this lesson and in some others. We will be having a duelling contest."

At this there was a lot of murmuring about the class. Some of the Hufflepuffs began to look very pale, and Malfoy was looking menacingly at some of the Gryfindors.

"_Everyone's _name will be entered, however if you really don't wish to take part then you can simply forfeit and your opponent will go though to the next round. All the contests will take place in your lessons here until we reach the quarterfinals. Those and upwards will take place in the Great Hall. We wouldn't want the rest of the school to miss out on all the fun would we?" he winked at the class and then carried on, "I will keep all the different year groups separate to start with. And after we have a winner for each year, they will also go against each other until we have a school champion. Who knows, the winner may get to have a shot at beating me!"

From the looks on everyone's faces, they certainly didn't look like they fancied their chances. The small amount of magic they had seen their professor do had been unlike anything they had seen before.

"Anyway, enough about that. You will find out about the first round before the end of the week. Today, as promised, we are going to be working on something very different, and we won't be needing our wands."

He slipped his wand up his sleeve. "Wandless magic can be difficult at the best of times. To get it to work properly you either need a lot of focus, or a lot of emotion. I'm sure you can all think of examples where you were afraid or angry and you caused something to happen without knowing how. With strong emotion your body expels magic, and that's what I want you to be able to do when you focus. Perhaps a small demonstration…"

He raised both of his arms up into the air and very briefly closed his eyes, seemingly concentrating on something, and then said in a loud and clear voice that almost echoed around the room. "Up."

All at once, every chair that someone was sitting on, along with their desk, went floating a few feet off the ground as if suspended from the ceiling with strings. Everyone clutched onto the seat of their chair and held on tightly, for they were swaying to and fro. After a few seconds the professor lowered his arms slowly until they were by his sides, and everything settled back on the floor.

"As you can see it is definitely possible," he said, grinning very slightly at them, "I have some feathers up here and I want you to practise with them until you can get them floating around without using your wands. You really do have to focus on what you want to happen, and try to feel the magic flowing through you. It is all around us, you just have to learn how to use it."

With that he walked over to his desk and took a big swig from his flask, while everyone just stared at him, not realising that they had just been told to start. After a while, led by Malfoy's confident swagger, they went up to the front and fetched a feather.

* * *

Down in the dungeons, Snape was focusing intently on an identical feather. He had a few hours free before lunch today, and was determined not to be one of the few teachers who couldn't keep up with the learning. He continued to stare, willing it to rise upwards with every ounce of strength he could muster, but it didn't move at all. 

"Up. Up. Up!" He said, his voice getting louder and louder each time. "Up. Up! Up! UP!"

Unable to take any more he made to slump back down on his chair. Little did he realise that while he was focusing, his chair had slid away from him a few feet, and he landed heavily on the floor. It was a good job he wasn't a student, for he would have had to take quite a lot of house points from Slytherin for some of the language he used.

* * *

Back in the charms classroom, the people there were having similar luck, despite the help the professor was trying to give them. Ron was adamant that his feather twitched, but was unable to do so again when anyone was watching. Hermione however, was nervous. 

Ever since the incident in the Room of Requirement she had been advised by the professor to be careful for a while when performing magic, as it could be a little unpredictable now she had removed her block. In charms she had banished the whole classroom full of pillows at once, along with a few chairs, Neville's toad, and a rather confused Professor Flitwick. After that she had been making sure that she put as little effort into her spells as possible, and had managed to get by quite well. She looked down at her feather and very quietly whispered, "Up."

Nothing happened.

It was probably the first time in her life she had ever failed to perform a spell and was actually pleased about it. She didn't really feel like standing out any more at the moment, and was more than a little annoyed to look up and see the professor standing there looking at her.

"Come on Hermione, let's see a proper try this time."

She looked down at her feather. _Oh well_, she thought, _what's the worse that could happen?_ She took a deep breath, tried to focus for a moment, and commanded, "Up!"

There was a brief moment where she thought that nothing had happened, and was about to smile when the feather rose up quickly towards her hand. By itself this would not have been a problem. The trouble was is that her desk followed shortly behind it, and after knocking her arm out of the way, slammed itself against the ceiling, and stuck there. Hermione looked horrified, but the professor couldn't have been happier.

"Fantastic! Fantastic! You need a little more focus I think, but you should be able to master this in no time at all." He then made actions as if pulling on an invisible rope in the air, and the desk came back down to the floor.

When the table had settled Hermione looked up at him and gasped at what she saw. It wasn't the usual calm face of the professor looking back at her, but instead his eyes were wide in and his hands were visibly shaking. He collapsed heavily down to his knees, still shaking and whispered to Hermione in a croaky voice that spoke only of fear, "Find Dumbledore. _He's_ coming..."

* * *

A/N : Would you class this a cliff hanger? Maybe… 


	6. Chapter 6 He's Coming

Disclaimer : I don't own anything in the world of Harry Potter, that's J.K.Rowling's job. The plot is mine though.

Chapter 6 : He's Coming

_He collapsed heavily down to his knees, still shaking and whispered to Hermione in a croaky voice that spoke only of fear, "Find Dumbledore. He's coming..."_

_

* * *

_

"Out!" he screeched, "Everyone out!"

There was a blur of activity as they all tried to grab their things and hurry out of the classroom. Hermione didn't get up however, she just sat there looking at the Professor, unable to move. Harry and Ron stood by the door and waited for her to get up.

"Hermione, come on!" called Ron, "We have to go and find Dumbledore."

"You go," she answered, "I'll stay here."

As Harry and Ron left the room there was a roar of bright red flames in the centre of the room and a black-cloaked figure appeared from them. Almost before Hermione had even had chance to realise what was happening the figure spun round and swung a long, thin sword, which she was sure hadn't been there a second ago, straight at the Professor's head.

"Pr-" she started.

That was about all she had managed to say before the Professor had seen what was happening and blocked the blow with a sword of his own. Small silver sparks were shooting across the room from the point where the sword met. Both the men just stayed exactly where they were, unmoving, as if trying to find a weakness in the other. The Professor was still kneeling on the floor, his sword horizontally above his head, while his attacker was trying to force his sword downwards. At the moment of stillness Hermione had a chance to get a look at the figure.

At first glance he looked quite similar to the professor, about the same sort of height, wearing a pain robe, and about average build. His face was completely different however. It was heavily scarred and twisted, like he had been covered in rather nasty burns, and what were the most shocking were his eyes. They were completely black. There were no white or coloured parts to them, just completely black, and it gave him a terrifying appearance as though he wasn't quite human. The sword he was holding was a dark grey colour, and had many different runes along the blade. Hermione didn't recognise all of them, but she could see the one that represented death or murder.

In contrast, the Professor's sword was a lighter grey and was completely smooth. At times it seemed to glow faintly, as if the power inside it could be seen. A few moments later, Dumbledore hurriedly entered the room.

He took one look at what was happening in the room and without thinking twice shot a large red spell towards the figure in black. Hermione could hear the spell cracking through the air but as it reached it's target it just slowly faded away to next to nothing and only a faint red light washed over the pair of them. Not looking too discouraged, Dumbledore sent more spells similar to the first.

"Miss Granger," he called out, between spells, "Help".

Hermione had never heard Dumbledore actually asking for help before, but she pointed her wand in the same direction as his, and shot off a stunning spell, not worried about how strong it might be. Her spell ended up much the same way as Dumbledore's, and it was only when the two of them hit their target at exactly the same time did it have any effect at all. The two of them together caused the figure to sway ever so slightly on his feet, he looked up with a piercing glare towards Hermione causing her to stop.

It was like looking into an eternity of darkness and fear. The only time she had felt anything like it was when the Dementors had boarded the train to school. It was different though; she wasn't remembering the worst parts of her own life. Instead it was like all the pain and misery were being forced upon her. Unable to think she lowered her wand to her side. A moment later she was thrown back across the classroom by an invisible force and collided heavily will the wall with a sickening crack. Ron, who had been standing in the doorway watching fight, hurried over to where she lay. A small trail of blood ran down the wall where her head had stuck it, and a small pool had begun to form on the floor.

The Professor chose this moment to break the stalemate. He rolled quickly off to one side, letting his opponant's sword come crashing down to the floor, sprung to his feet and thrust his sword straight at the figure. The figure reacted inhumanly quickly to this blow but only managed to deflect the sword slightly to the side, and it pierced his left shoulder. With a cry of fury the figure stepped back and disappeared in a roar of flames. No sooner as he had gone, the Professor dropped his sword and fell back down to the floor.

Hermione and the Professor were both injured, but this time Dumbledore chose to move to the Professor first, and said something under his breath.

The professor smiled weakly, "I haven't heard that name in a long time. Don't spread it around." He glanced down at his arm and saw that it was cut slightly on the elbow, and chuckled slightly. "Looks like the old git has finally got me."

With that his eyes closed and he stopped moving.

* * *

Dumbledore stood in the Hospital Wing and looked at the two patients lying there. The Professor was physically fine, but much to Madam Pomfrey's annoyance he wasn't responding to any of her treatment and so just lay there unconscious. Hermione was not looking so good. As always Dumbledore was greatly saddened every time someone was injured on school grounds. He held himself responsible and just wished there was something he could do to make it better. He cursed himself for not thinking of some way he could have prevented it. He knew that this time would come sooner or later, he just figured the Professor would have stood a better chance inside the school.

_Perhaps if I had kept him away from the students._

He knew that wouldn't have helped. He might not have been able to fight _him _off without his and Hermione's help.

She had suffered a severe head injury and lost a lot of blood. He knew that there was little chance of her ever waking up, and even less chance of her mind being intact. If her situation didn't change soon he would have to pay a visit to her parents.

_How do you tell parents that their only child has… has…_

A single tear appeared at the corner of his eye. He tried to remain light-hearted as much as he could in his rather long life, but it was at times like this that he felt his age. He walked slowly out of the Hospital Wing and headed up to his office, his shoulders slumped forward.

* * *

The Professor slowly opened his eyes and remembered what had just happened. It had only seemed like a few moments ago, but he had been unconscious now for nearly a whole day. He looked down at his elbow and saw that the cut had nearly healed, but he knew that he would never be the same. Already he could feel the effects working inside him. _It won't be long now._

He looked over a the next bed and saw Hermione lying there, hardly breathing, with a bandage around her head.

_Save her. _He heard the voice in his head. _You know you can save her._

_But should I? _He thought. _Is it right to do that to her without asking her first? She will never be the same…_

It's that or death.

He made his decision, climbed slowly out of his bed and walked over to Hermione, completely ignoring Dumbledore who was sitting by her bed. He had assured her friends that he would stay with her during the day so that they could all carry on going to lessons. The Professor placed both of his hands a few inches above her chest, and closed his eyes. Dumbledore reached over and placed a hand on the Professor's arm, and their eyes locked. After a few moments the Professor nodded his head slighly and closed his eyes again.

He tried to focus on all the power he could manage and built it up inside him. On the outside he started glowing very brightly. It wasn't just a faint glow, but more like the burning of the sun. It was too bright, and Dumbledore had to look away. The Professor's cloak flapped behind him, as though being blown about by some strong wind, and with one final push, the Professor forced every ounce of magic he could out of his hands. A bright beam of light flew out from them and stuck Hermione dead on.

For an instant nothing happened, then she opened her eyes, burst into flames, and screamed.

* * *

A/N – Well I suppose that sort of sets the story up nicely! I promise some of the other characters will come into it soon, along with a few more of my own!  



	7. Chapter 7 The Torch

Disclaimer : I don't own anything in the world of Harry Potter, that's J.K.Rowling's job. The plot is mine though.

Chapter 7 : The Torch

_For an instant nothing happened, then she burst into flames. Her eyes opened and she screamed…_

_

* * *

_

As soon as the screaming started Dumbledore leapt to his feet. No matter how much he trusted the newest member of his staff, there was no way he could stand by and listen to someone in so much pain. However he took no more than a step towards the bed before the Professor looked up from what he was doing.

His eyes were the same as the ones the figure in the classroom had the day before, and it shocked Dumbledore just how terrifying it made the man look. His journey towards the bed was cut short and he found himself sliding across the room on his feet, then tumbling over backwards onto another bed. He tried to get up, but it was as though someone very strong had placed their hands on his shoulders. He drew his wand and tried any spell he could think of that would propel himself forwards, but nothing worked. All he could do was remain there and listen to the horrible screaming sounds echoing around the ancient walls of the castle.

He could see Madam Pomfrey standing in the doorway of her office, frantically trying to enter the room but being held back in much the same way as Dumbledore was. Hermione was still lying on the bed, screaming in pain, and her skin was still burning with bright orange and red flames. He could see the burns growing and spreading across her skin, and even smell the awful smell of skin and hair burning. He forced himself to look away and tried to focus on breaking free. Just as he was about to give up all hope the screaming came to an abrupt end, leaving the sound to echo itself out. The bright light surrounding the professor started to gradually fade, and then suddenly the force holding Dumbledore back disappeared causing him to spring up and once again tumble across the room. Madam Promfrey also fell into the room.

Dumbledore just stood where he was and stared. He stared at the motionless professor, and at the burnt outline of a person where Hermione had previously been lying. He couldn't do anything but stare.

* * *

The Professor was exhausted. It had literally taken every ounce of his strength to complete his task, and now his injuries were beginning to catch up with him. He didn't even think he would have the energy to make it back to his own bed. Not noticing Dumbledore staring at him, he allowed his head to fall onto the bed. As he fell into darkness he thought to himself, _I hope I've done the right thing._

_

* * *

_

The pain ripped through both her mind and her body. Every part of her was aching, screaming for the pain to stop. She felt sure that she was dieing. Surely nobody could live through such pain. Even her vision had gone completely black, overcome by the sheer agony. It was so hot she could almost feel her skin being torn away. Then finally, a bit at a time, the pain began to fade away. She instinctively tried to open her eyes to see where she was, but nothing was making much sense to her yet, and everything was still dark.

Even in the midst of all the darkness and confusion she could feel pressure in her left hand. It gave her something to focus on, and slowly but surely, her mind started to come back together. As everything began to come back into focus she tried to remember what happened and work out where she was.

_I was… the Professor! But this isn't the classroom… Hospital Wing? But I'm not on a bed…Where am I?_

With great effort she forced her head to the side and the person she saw next to her was probably the last person she would have expected.It wasn't one of her friends; it wasn't Dumbledore; it wasn't even the Professor.

The young girl at her side noticed her movement, smiled sweetly, and then said in a very childish voice, "Hiya!"

It was the girl from the Professor's photograph, looking exactly the same as she remembered. Her fairly long black hair flowed down just past her shoulders, and she wore a plain white dress down to just above her bare-footed ankles. Her eyes sparkled as she spoke, and perfectly happy and content, as though she didn't have a care in the world.

"Hiya!" she said again, "Are you awake now? I'm Ilana." She thrust her free hand forwards as if to shake Hermione's hand.

Hermione tried to reply, but all that came out of her mouth was a strange croaking noise, and she could feel herself falling back asleep.

"That's ok, you get some more rest. I'll still be here when you…"

Hermione was asleep once more.

When Hermione next came to she was definitely feeling a lot better. Her joints were still very stiff, and her head was still throbbing, but it was a definite improvement. With a great effort she opened her eyes and once again saw the girl sitting beside her, gazing off into the distance with a calm look on her face. She looked down at herself and saw that she was wearing a dress identical to the girl's.

After taking a few deep breaths she took a good look around at where she was. She was lying down on her back on what looked like a garden lawn. In the direction of where her feet were, about fifty meters away she could see a small thatched cottage with smoke drifting serenely from the chimney. The sky was a bright blue and the faint chirping of birds could be heard in the distance. Surrounding the lawn in every direction was a thick layer of trees, blocking off any view of where this place might be. Her stomach did a funny jump as a horrible thought struck her.

"I'm not dead am I?"

The girl glanced across at her and giggled. "Everyone always asks that. No you aren't dead. You took a nasty bump to the head I think, but you should be alright now."

Hermione frowned slightly as if trying to remember something and asked tentatively, "Who are you?"

The girl thrust her hand out once again. "I'm Ilana."

Feeling rather stupid Hermione took Ilana's hand and shook it, causing the girl to smile even more than she was before. Strangely as soon as their hands touched she could feel the pain in her head begin to fade a bit and she could feel a strange warmness inside her, putting her slightly mroe at ease. It felt like drinking hot chocolate on a cold day. Unable to help herself, she smiled back. "Where am I?" she asked.

"That's my house," Ilana waved her other hand towards the cottage. "Do you want to come inside?"

Not waiting for an answer Ilana pulled Hermione to her feet and led her towards the house. They walked inside hand in hand.

The warm and friendly feeling inside the cottage reminded her somewhat of the Burrow. On the right hand wall was a log fire, burning away calmly and surrounded by a pair of comfortable looking armchairs. On the opposite wall there were any number of muggle paintings of various witches and wizards, none of whom looked familiar. Over on the far wall were a handful of doors leading through to other rooms, which the house shouldn't really have had any room for if it was in the muggle world. Ilana guided Hermione over to one of the chairs and sat down in the other. Even though it was fairly warm outside, it felt nice to be sitting by the fire.

"So why am I here?" Hermione asked.

"It seems you have been chosen," replied the girl, with a slightly more serious expression than before. "Chosen to be trained as the Guardian."

Hermione racked her brain to try to think where she had heard that name before, but came up with nothing. "Guardian?"

"Yes. You probably wouldn't have heard of them before. There is only ever a single Guardian at any one time. There just simply isn't enough magic to sustain more than that. Your Professor was the last one, and now the torch has been passed to you."

"But…but…why? Why me? There must be some mistake. I hit my head just now in the classroom…"

"I don't know why. That isn't up to me. Obviously something happened to the Professor which meant he couldn't be the Guardian any more, so now I'm here to teach you."

"He's not… dead is he?"

"I don't. Probably not.Without the Guardian magic to protect him, he could be. That's why you need to take your place quickly. There are many evils in the world that will always try to win over good. And that is what the Guardian is for, to fight for the side of the light. Your Professor must have chosen you for a reason."

"But how can you teach me? You just a…"

Ilana giggled a little, and then her expression changed. She looked straight at Hermione with a steady, calculated gaze that looked out of place on someone so young, and spoke in a slightly deeper voice that sounded more like a woman speaking than a little girl. "Do not be fooled by appearances Hermione. I may appear young to you, but I am older than the oldest of your kind. I have been here teaching for a very long time."

Hermione couldn't think of anything to say to this, so she just nodded her head slightly.

Ilana broke out in a grin once again, and continued in her usual voice, "I will show you around the place today, and tomorrow we can start on some of your studies. If I'm right in thinking what it was that attacked Christin, it won't stay away for long, and you will need to be ready."

"Christin?"

"That would be the name of your Professor. Before he became a Guardian of course. When he took on the responsibilities, like a lot of people before him, he wanted to leave his past behind him, so he chose to give up his name. He faked his own death so nobody would come looking for him, he didn't really have a family, and wasn't that close to any of his friends. I believe he knew another of your Professors at school thoough. Some people just aren't cut out to being in the press all the time."

"Will I have to give up my name as well?"

"Not if you don't want to. It's up to you, but you have plenty of time to decide?"

"How long will this training last?" Hermione asked, not liking the idea of giving up her name one little bit. "I should probably get back and let people know I am alright…"

"There won't be any need for that," Ilana answered, standing up and moving towards one of the doors, gesturing for Hermione to do the same. "It isn't safe for you to go back yet. Not until you are properly trained. Besides, we could spend months here and only a few days will have passed back there.

"Oh," she added, "and don't go having any strange ideas about time being slowed down or sped up. That is certainly much more complicated. Time runs perfectly normally in both places, they just are linked together rather strangely…

* * *

A figure stood almost completely surrounded by tall trees. He was standing just on the edge of a clearing, listening to the sounds of voices within. He knew the person he wanted was here, but he had been waiting and observing the proceedings for some time, clutching his shoulder awkwardly. He knew he only had a limited amount of time left, but patience came naturally to him. He had witnessed at least two people tortured and then killed using a green curse he didn't recognise. He then saw a number of people have a strange magical tattoo burned onto their skin, including a blonde haired boy he had paid particular attention to. He concentrated harder on the voices. 

"Tell me Severus, what news do you have from Hogwarts?"

"No changes my Lord," the other man replied.

"This is not what I want to hear. I want progress! _Crucio!_"

There were muffled cries of pain for some time, before the leader spoke again.

"Get out of my sight. I want results Severus, you have been hiding away in that castle for too long. It is time for you to prove youself."

When the other man had left, he decided to make his move. He walked calmly out of his hiding place and into the clearing; his long robes making it look like he was almost floating. The obvious leader of the group spotted him.

"Who are you? How dare you disturb this meeting? Come over here and address your Lord properly."

He completely ignored the snake-eyed man and walked on.

"Stop! I command you! _Avada Kadavra!_

Out of the leader's wand shot a green bolt of light, seen all to often by this group of people, but the light simply washed over the figure as if it was nothing more than water. Continuing to ignore everything that was happening around him, he continued to walk on. When he had reached his target he held out his hand, summoned every ounce of strength he had left in him, and much to the amazement of all the people gathered there, his target burst into flames.

* * *

A/N – Nice long chapter this time. Hope it doesn't disappoint. Just passed 10,000 words! Here's to 20,000! Thanks to all the reviewers. I do try and reply to them all. Critisim welcome, but so are compliments!  



	8. Chapter 8 Training

Disclaimer : I don't own anything in the world of Harry Potter, that's J.K.Rowling's job. The plot is mine though.

Chapter 8 : The Training

_"It seems you have been chosen," replied the girl, with a slightly more serious expression than before. "Chosen to be trained as the Guardian."_

_

* * *

_

Ilana had spent the rest of that day showing Hermione around the other rooms of the cottage. Firstly there was a rather impressively equipped training room, fitted out with various types of weapons, and an area in the middle that looked like it could be used for duelling. There was also a decently sized library, with rows upon rows of ancient reference books, seemingly containing knowledge of nearly every spell imaginable. After nearly an hour of flicking through as many books as she could get her hands on, Hermione had to be half dragged out of the room so Ilana could show her around the rest. The kitchen was of a similar style to the living room, fairly small and with that warm homely feeling about it. The back garden was far more impressive than the front. It contained a whole array of different species of flowers, all expertly arranged amongst winding paths and small water features. Hermione had spent quite some time sitting on one of the many small benches, next to a bubbling fountain, to reflect on the day's events while Ilana went back inside.

_Why? Why me? All I wanted was to be accepted in the wizarding world, now I've got this. But it could be an interesting chance to learn things… I mean, if she taught the Professor…I do hope he's all right. And what was that thing that attacked him?_

She made her mind up at that point that she was going to give this training a chance. She stood up, brushed off her robes, and headed back into the house. Ilana was waiting for her, and showed her to the last room of the house, her room. There was nothing special there, just a bed, a set of drawers to keep clothes in, a clock, and a small window overlooking the garden.

"You had better get some sleep soon," Ilana told her, "I know you are still tired after coming here, and night will be here soon anyway. Feel free to borrow as many books as you like from the library, and we're going to start at eight tomorrow. We wouldn't want to waste any time here. Help yourself to some breakfast in the morning."

With that Ilana left the room and went out into the garden, skipping slightly as she went.

* * *

Back at Hogwarts, less than an hour had passed. After making sure the Professor was comfortably back in his own bed and giving instructions to Poppy to let him know the instant he woke up, he shuffled back up the winding staircase to his office. He slumped down heavily in his seat, crossed his arms on his desk and placed his head down on them. Rarely had he ever felt so defeated. Even during the last war, he had always had plans. Plans that worked, plans that failed, but all the time coming up with ideas on how to win. This time though he had nothing. There was no way to win, one of his students had died under his care. One of his _favourite_ students.

He knew he shouldn't really have favourites, and they were all important to him. He had sworn to do his best to teach what he could to each and every one of the students that passed under his care. However he couldn't help get attached to the bushy haired girl when he first caught sight of her at the opening feast. She was wide-eyed and had that spark about her that was so rarely seen these days; that spark of the desire to learn. That was what kept him going even through the most difficult of times; coming out of his office and into the Great Hall to see the young eager faces waiting for him.

His mind kept going back to the same question. _Why?_ _Why would Christin have done that?_

He had known the man for a very long time, and was sure he wasn't capable of doing such a thing. But wait. _He wouldn't._

Those words brought back the tiniest of sparks to his weary bones. _Of course he wouldn't. He would certainly have the magic to heal something like a head injury? Wouldn't he?_

He knew Christin would be the only one with the answers, so he would have to wait until he woke up. He would have to be very careful though, he knew what the man was capable of, and he was certainly more than a match for a rather old Headmaster. He would wait before informing her parents. He really had no idea what had happened to her, and he didn't fancy the idea of trying to explain her death if there was any chance she could come back. Until then, he had an idea, but he would need to tell her friends. Dumbledore walked slowly out of his office again, a new hope within him, but apprehensive all the same. He was _not_ looking forward to this conversation.

* * *

Hermione awoke the next morning just before eight. There had never been any need for her to have an alarm clock; she had always been able to wake up just on time for everything. It was quite a useful skill actually. She got up, crossed the rather barren room, she would have to do something about that later, and put on one of the many sets of identical clothes. She walked slowly into the kitchen and looked for something to eat. Already laid out on the table was a small bowl of porridge, still steaming slightly as though it had just been made. At that moment Ilana skipped in from the garden.

"Good morning," She chirped, "Porridge is alright isn't it? I thought you might use some decent food inside you, you ate hardly anything yesterday."

Thinking about it she _was _rather hungry, so she sat down at the table and almost attacked the food in a style much more fitting for Ron or Harry. After finishing the entire bowl and feeling much better for it, she looked across at Ilana, who was looking rather distracted.

"How long have you been out in the garden?" Hermione asked, "I didn't hear you go out this morning."

Thinking about it, she couldn't remember seeing any place where Ilana would sleep.

"Oh, I don't sleep very often," she replied, "I haven't needed to in quite a while. I usually just go outside and rest; that's enough for me these days." She carried on looking around for a few moments before carrying on, "I hope Christin is alright, I haven't sensed anything from him recently. I enjoyed our time here together, he was a wonderful student."

"You trained him here then?" Hermione asked.

"Yeh, it was quite a long time ago now, though not nearly as long as it could have been. It's a downside to who I am I suppose. I live here, and I train people, but I rarely get to see what goes on with the rest of the world." She looked almost sad for a few moments, before visibly shaking it off. "Come on then, lets get started. You are in for a few tough days I think, but we'll see."

With that, Hermione followed her into the training room.

* * *

"She what!" Ron shouted.

Dumbledore had taken Harry and Ron out of their lessons personally, an action almost never seen in Hogwarts, and escorted them to the Hospital Wing, where he had explained everything that had happened.

"Ron," Dumbledore said, trying to calm down the situation, "I really don't know what has happened to her. The only person that could truly answer that question is the Professor, but he is still unconscious. I'm sure he will explain everything when he wakes up."

Ron made a move towards where the Professor was lying. "That murdering b-"

Dumbledore grabbed Ron by the arm with an unusually strong grip and looked straight into his eyes, showing him that he was also affected as much by this as they were. "Ron. Don't. If I thought it would do any good I would have tried it myself. Making a move against him will only go badly."

Dumbledore guided the two of them over to the bed where Hermione had been, stopped for a moment, and looked across at Harry. He hadn't said a word since he had started explaining what had happened. Dumbledore reached over and put a hand on his shoulder. "She is going to be all right Harry, and I'm going to prove it to you."

He knew how much this must have affected Harry. All through his early childhood, he hadn't had many friends. Any at all if he was to be truthful, and he felt mostly responsible for this. Hermione and Ron were his first and closest friends, and for him to lose one of them so soon…

Composing himself for a moment, he continued. "You two have spent more time with her than anyone. Close friends like the three of you, have a special sort of connection to each other, and if you concentrate you should be able to get some idea of where she is, or at least how she is feeling. Just put your hand over where she was, and close your eyes. Try to remember some of your strongest memories together and then try and reach out to her."

They did as they were told, and closed their eyes. After a few moments Dumbledore noticed Harry wipe one of his eyes with the back of his hand before continuing to concentrate.

He was just beginning to lose all hope when Ron shouted, "She's alive! I know it!"

He looked across at Harry. He now had a small smile on him face, and spoke in little more than a whisper, "She's reading."

"Typical," said Ron, rolling his eyes.

* * *

Hermione collapsed back down on the softened floor once again. She had been given a sword to use designed for training, it was both quite light and blunt around the edges to make it safe to use. She had been shown this person-sized wooden cylinder with poles sticking out of it at various heights, and told to whack the parts of it that lit up. That was the easy part. It became much more challenging when the whole thing decided to randomly rotate. She had to concentrate on jumping or ducking the poles, while still focusing on the cylinder. She had never done any serious sporting activity before, preferring to stay in the library and read, so it wasn't long before she was breathing heavily and being tripped up almost continually.

After being caught in the face by one of the poles, Ilana ended the session and walked over to her.

"That wasn't bad for a first attempt but I think you were focusing a little too much on the attacking. The most important thing to do is not get hurt. Next time, pay more attention to dodging, and only once you feel happy about it should you start trying to attack."

Hermione could only nod at this as she was still breathing heavily.

"After you've had something to eat we will start on some of the magical side to things. You can read a few things in the library as well if you want. I know you have been eager to take a look in there since you first saw it."

With that Hermione placed her sword over on the rack and hobbled out of the room, her muscles complaining with every step. After getting something to eat, she slumped down into a chair in the library and picked up a book entitled, Influential Spells of the Eighteenth Century. For a moment she could have sworn someone was watching her, but Ilana wasn't around, and there was nobody else there. She shrugged and carried on reading.

* * *

Somewhere, in a far darker place, someone else was also training. He was twirling a vicious looking blade around with tremendous accuracy, and eying his target. He rushed in and attacked, and the teacher and student traded blows.

* * *

A/N – Longer and longer chapters! And so soon after the last one… What is the matter with me! Thanks to the reviewers, always a pleasure to read what you have to say. 


	9. Chapter 9 Death Eaters

Disclaimer : I don't own anything in the world of Harry Potter, that's J.K.Rowling's job. The plot is mine though.

Chapter 9 : Death Eaters

_He was just beginning to lose all hope when Ron shouted, "She's alive! I know it!"_

_

* * *

_

"Go!" yelled Voldemort to the followers who stood before him, "I want you all to come with me to Hogsmeade, they won't be expecting an attack now. That old fool will have to come out of the castle to protect the people. I'll show him that nobody can stand against Lord Voldemort."

In small groups the crowd disapperated, heading off to their intended targets, followed shortly by Voldemort himself.

* * *

Already quite tired from the morning's workout, Hermione entered the training room again, and joined Ilana on the floor.

"Ah good, you're back," Ilana said, "I'm sure you will like this part of the training much more than this morning. From what I can tell, you were quite powerful already. Four genes was it?"

"Erm, yeh," Hermione replied thinking back to what the Professor had told her, "I think so. I had a block but the Professor helped me to get past it."

"Ah that's good, did Christin tell you about his magic?"

"He told me that he didn't have any of the genes in him, and it was his mentor who changed him. So that's you?"

"Yes that's right." Ilana smiled, "When the time came, the guardian before him didn't have enough strength left in him to transfer the magic correctly, so I had to go there and sort it myself. I don't leave this place very often because this is where I belong, but I do when necessary."

"So that's what the Professor did to me, take away my magical genes and give me the Guardian magic?"

Ilana nodded.

"But why me? Surely there are more experienced people out there, people who know more about magic or are more powerful?"

Ilana thought about this for a moment before replying, "To be honest I don't completely know. From the looks of you when you got here you had a rather nasty injury to your head. Perhaps he decided that there was no other way to save you than to send you here. He certainly wouldn't have done it unless he wasn't going to lose the magic himself anyway. Leaving the world without a guardian even for a few days is dangerous."

"Why is it dangerous? There can't be that much evil trying to take over can there?"

"You'd be surprised what goes on that can't be normally seen. There are more worlds than just the physical one. You should know about the ghostly plane, it is where ghosts are. It is the closest one to our own, that's why you can see them, but they aren't quite there. Then there is the spectral plane, the spiritual plane, where prophecies come from, and many others that few people have heard of. Usually the simple fact that the Guardian is there is enough to keep everything where it should be, but without one, a few may try and cross the boundaries.

"Anyway, you can worry about that some other time, I am here to teach you how to control your magic. But first, I must give you this." Ilana held out her hand, and in it appeared a light grey sword, shining brightly as though catching the sun at every angle.

"Is that… that looks just like the one the Professor was using yesterday."

"He was using this?" Ilana asked, "Whatever it was that attacked him, it must have been serious. He never did like using it all that much. He always relied on his magic a little more than he should have. This isn't just like his; it is exactly the same one. There will only ever be one of these. It is practically unbreakable and was made out of pure light by the first Guardian. You must keep this with you at all times. Hide it with a spell, shrink it down and put it in your pocket, wear it in plain sight, it doesn't matter. You never know when you might need it."

Hermione carefully took the sword and placed it down on the ground next to her.

"Now lets try this first exercise, could you banish this ball for me please." With a wave of her hand Ilana conjured a small rubber ball a few feet away.

As the Professor had taught her, she pointed the palm of her hand towards the ball and tried to concentrate on the feeling of magic inside her. As she focused, she noticed that there was definitely something different about the way the magic felt. Before it had been like a fire burning inside of her, waiting jump out when she used it. Now it felt more restrained and focused, like a wild animal waiting to pounce. As she spoke the words of the charm, the force behind the spell was enough to push her onto her back, and was enough to send the ball rocketing straight through the air, through the far wall, and out into the garden, with no sign of slowing down. A few moments later the wall shimmered slightly, and the gap disappeared.

Ilana didn't look at all surprised and started to explain. "You should have noticed that felt slightly different to what you are used to. Simply having in your mind what spell you want to perform won't be enough any more. As you can see, performing a spell with no limits like that is dangerously powerful. When casting a spell you have to also focus on the details. So instead of just _banish, _you think_ banish carefully over there. _Here have another go."

Ilana conjured another ball in the same place as before and gestured for her to try again.

"This time just try and get it to stop by the far wall."

This time Hermione had much more success and the ball bounced harmless off the wall.

"Fantastic!" applauded Ilana. "Your training should hardly take any time at all! Now, try banishing both of these at once…"

* * *

Harry made his way slowly down to the Great Hall for lunch, though to be truthful he wasn't really hungry. His knees still felt weak after finding out what had happened to Hermione, and was so relieved to see that she was all right. He would still feel much better when they knew how to find her, but until the Professor woke up, they didn't know where to start.

He sat down at the table, and Ron sat down next to him. Neither of them said anything as they placed food on their plates, they were too lost in their own thoughts. Just as Harry was about to begin eating a sharp pain burst through his scar and he caught sight of where Voldemort was. He was attacking Hogsmeade! He could see some of the Death Eaters setting fire to the houses, and Voldemort himself was just standing there in the middle of the street, careless cutting down anyone unlucky enough to get close to him. It was total chaos.

Staggering to his feet he called out, "Ron, it's Voldemort. He's attacking Hogsmeade. I have to warn Dumbledore."

Ron put one of Harry's arms over his shoulders and led him back up to the Hospital Wing again to find Dumbledore.

It didn't take Dumbledore long to decide what he had to do. He gathered together a group of the staff and instructed the others to make sure all the students were safely in their common rooms. On his way up, Harry came to a decision.

"Ron, I have to go and help. There must be nearly all the Death Eaters there, and even Voldemort himself. I have to try." Harry kept repeating the prophecy over and over in his mind. He knew that Dumbledore couldn't stop Voldemort, so the battle surely couldn't be won without him. He was the only one who stood a chance.

"But mate," replied Ron, "Dumbledore and most of the teachers are going. One of us isn't going to make any difference, it is safer to stay up here where they know where we are."

Not wanting to explain to Ron about the prophecy he tried to think up some excuse. "But Ron, we could at least try and keep some of the people safe. If Dumbledore loses it won't matter where we were. Voldemort will come to the castle next. I'm going to slip out down the secret tunnel."

"Fine. But if you're going, I'm coming with you."

Harry didn't protest to this so when nobody was looking, they both slipped away and hurried down the tunnel as fast as they could.

As Harry looked out of the window to the Three Broomsticks, he could see that Hogsmeade was already half in ruins. A number of the buildings that were the furthest away from the castle had burnt almost completely to the ground and the Death eaters were gradually working their way up the street. Individually they were no match for any of the staff, but by shear numbers they were managing to gain ground. Dumbledore had taken it upon himself to get as many people as he could inside the Three Broomsticks and was frantically defending the entrance from at least half a dozen Death Eaters.

From his point inside the building Harry could see that the fight wouldn't be lasting much longer. Voldemort was making his way over to where Dumbledore was with a slow and confident stride. When he saw Voldemort being raising his wand he started to panic. There was no way Dumbledore could win. The prophecy said he was the one to defeat Voldemort. He could not let anyone else die because of him. He quickly pushed Dumbledore out of the way, putting a quick stunning spell on him, and stepped onto the street.

"Stop!" ordered Voldemort to the Death Eaters who had now trained their wands on Harry. "This one's mine. _Avada Kadavra._"

Even before Harry could react to what was happening he saw the bright green light from the curse cracking towards him, and he knew there was no way he could get out of the way in time. This was it. He closed his eyes, and braced himself.

* * *

A/N – The end. Hehe. No, only joking. Got two chapters sorted out today. Next one may not be for a few days, I have an exam coming up. Hope you have enjoyed it up till now! Thanks for all the reviews. 


	10. Chapter 10 Welcome Back

Disclaimer : I don't own anything in the world of Harry Potter, that's J.K.Rowling's job. The plot is mine though.

Chapter 10 : Welcome Back

* * *

As she had done now for nearly two weeks, Hermione entered the training room. The changes that had affected her during that time had been outstanding. She looked like she had grown a few inches, but that could be because she now walked without slouching forwards or lowering her eyes in nervousness. Her hair had straightened slightly, and had grown to below her shoulders. It still contained some of the bushiness it had before, but it looked much more formal and refined. 

It didn't take long for the two of them to begin a mock fight against each other. Hermione had found that on raw power alone she had Ilana beat, but up till now she had been lacking the experience necessary to win any of the fights. Ilana had to transfigure herself for these fights into an older, and taller, person; if not the fights would have been very awkward.

Hermione wheeled the Sword of Light round straight at Ilana, who blocked the blow with her own sword, but after a few moments apperated away, leaving Hermione's blade to swing harmlessly through the air. She sensed a strong spell coming at her from behind, and only just about had enough time to raise a shield, to deflect it away from her. She swung her sword once again, but Ilana was already gone. Anticipating where she would end up, Hermione shot off a few spells of her own with her left hand, in the hope one of them would find their target. This time however Ilana appeared back in the same place she has apperated from, so the spells missed by a long way. As Hermione raised her sword for the third time, Ilana pointed her hand towards the wall, and one of the swords held on it flew out of its holder and headed for Hermione like an arrow.

She had been caught out by this a few times in the past week, but it didn't faze her this time. She took one quick step backwards, and leaned back slightly, allowing the sword to whistle past her face and embed itself in the opposite wall, humming softly as it vibrated there. At that point Hermione had an idea, and was shocked that it hadn't occurred to her before. She cast a quick spell silently to herself, and then swung her sword again. For an instant Ilana didn't move. She just stood there and blinked a few times, before finally raising her sword at the last moment.

The two swords struck one another and sparks began to shoot off from where they met. Slowly, the swords got closer and closer to Ilana, and as they reached her she announced, "Yield," and they both took a step back.

After bowing to each other, Hermione slipped her sword into the holster across her back, and the two of them walked around the room to cool down. She had taken to wearing the sword across her back as she found it the quickest place she could get at it when she needed to.

"That was great work back there," said Ilana, gradually turning back into the familiar little girl, "I wondered how long it would be before you thought of using anti-apparition spells. Next time I'll have to think of a way round that one. I don't think your training will take more than another week maximum, then you'll be ready to return home. Only a few days will have passed in total by then, so I don't think too much trouble will have been caused."

Hermione had been told in their first fight, that she would be expected to eventually win every time, but she was secretly very pleased that she had finally managed to get the better of her teacher. She had found herself lying on the floor for most of the first week.

"Now," said Ilana, after they had both sat down to rest, "I think it's about time we found out what happened to Christin so you can be ready for whatever is down there. Just try it like I showed you. Concentrate, and try to reach out with your mind to where he is. If you guessed correctly, he could still be lying in your Hospital Wing."

Hermione did this and it wasn't long before she could see a rather fuzzy image of Hogwarts. She tried to focus it down further, and eventually she could just make out the Professor lying on one of the beds in the Hospital Wing, unconscious. Even with this unclear image, she was able to tell that something was wrong with his shoulder. It seemed to be darker than all the rest of him, as if light was being drawn towards it. She ended her concentration and told Ilana what she saw.

"Well if you're right," Ilana replied, "and he does indeed have something wrong with his shoulder then that could have been why he had to give you his magic. There is a sword similar but opposite to your own; it is made of pure darkness. If it cuts a Guardian even slightly, the darkness works away at them, and it will end up being fatal. Now he has given the magic over to you, he should make a full recovery eventually."

"Does it work the other way around as well?" Hermione asked, "Can my sword be fatal?"

"Not to you. You might have noticed actually that you feel stronger when you are holding it. That's why you should try and be with it for as much as you can. If you manage to injure the Destroyer with it though, it will have a similar effect on them. They will be forced to give up their power."

Hermione didn't like the sound of that at all. "What's a Destroyer?"

"Not '_A_'. '_The_'. There is only ever one of them, same as there is only ever one Guardian. They are basically the complete opposite to what you are. They bring fear and destuction and seek power above all else, and will stop at nothing to get it. It all depends on if Christin managed to injure him before getting hurt. I'm fairly sure he must have, or the Destroyer would have finished him while he had the chance, which means it could be anyone now."

"How do I tell who it is?"

"There isn't really any definite way of telling. They would have to quite evil to start with or they wouldn't be chosen. They would have to crave power, and then the magic would help them along even further. The best thing to do, is be wary of anyone, and see who packs the hardest punch."

Hermione thought to herself about who could be evil enough but she kept coming back to the same name…"Voldemort."

"It's possible. From what you have told me of him he does seem to fit. You will have to be careful when you go back, look out for anything suspicious." Ilana quickly changed the subject, "I think that will be enough for today, go and get some rest. We will be taking the training up to the next level tomorrow. Obviously just fighting me has become a little too easy for you."

Hermione couldn't understand how the training could get even harder, but she didn't disagree. Ilana had already found plenty of different ways to catch her off guard, so she would just have to try and take whatever it was as well as possible. She quickly thanked Ilana and headed back to her room. She picked up one of the many books she had lying around in her room and lay down on her bed, taking her sword off her back and placing it down next to her. Before reading it, she decided to find out what she could see of Hogwarts again, to see if her friends were all right.

She closed her eyes and spent a few minutes searching all the likely places for them to be. Great Hall, Dormitories, Common Room, and Classrooms… she was just giving up hope and viewing the whole castle again, when she caught sight of a bright light in the distance. As her mind drifted closer she could see that the light was coming from some of the burning buildings in Hogsmeade. Due to how fast her time was travelling relative to the flames, they were almost motionless.

As she took in the scene around her she could see teachers crouched down at the end of the street, defending themselves as best they could. What looked like around a hundred Death Eaters were facing them, pointing their wands, and a few looked like they had just cast spells. Many different coloured streaks of light littered the street as she could see each spell very slowly edging its way along. It was then she saw Harry and Voldemort. Voldemort had his wand pointed straight at him, the tip of his wand bathed in green light.

With a yelp Hermione grabbed her sword and rushed back into the training room, explaining hurriedly to Ilana what she had seen.

"I have to go back! I can finish my training afterwards. I have to go and help him!" she shouted frantically. "There is a killing curse heading straight for him, I can't stand by and do nothing."

"But Hermione, your training hasn't finished. It could be dangerous for you to leave here so soon. Once you leave here you can't come back. This place will only exist once for you."

"But Voldemort is there," Hermione countered, "If he is who we think he is, he must have finished his training. I'm the only one who can stop him."

Ilana stopped to think for a moment but Hermione carried on.

"And if I am supposed to be the Guardian, what better way than to start by protecting my friends. I wouldn't be the sort of person I need to be if I just stand by and let him die."

Reluctantly Ilana agreed, "Ok, go then. When all this is over, go and find the professor. He won't have anywhere near the same levels of magic any more, but he should still be able to teach you a thing or two. Be careful Hermione, I would hate to be training someone else here in just a few more days."

"How?" asked Hermione urgently, "How do I get back?"

"Just close your eyes and imagine where you want to be, and I'll give you a push. It's been fun working with you Hermione."

Hermione closed her eyes, and with a quick word of thanks to Ilana, was gone.

* * *

Even before Harry could react to what was happening he saw the bright green light from the curse cracking towards him, and he knew there was no way he could get out of the way in time. This was it. He closed his eyes, and braced himself. 

Suddenly there was the commanding voice of a woman shouting, "No!" and he opened his eyes. Standing in front of him with her back towards him was a fairly tall woman, with long wavy hair, dressed completely in white and bare footed. For a few moments she was completely engulfed in the green light of the curse but was still moving slowly towards Voldemort. Her right hand was stretched towards him, and it was holding a dazzlingly bright sword.

A large number of foolish Death Eaters decided to approach her, throwing all sort of curses and hexes in her direction, but one by one they dissipated harmlessly a few meters away from her. She turned her head and waved her left arm towards a few of the most energetic of them, and two of them flew backwards and collided heavily with one of the buildings that was still standing. Voldemort took this moment of distraction to fire one of his own powerful curses that hissed and spat a deep red colour as it flew towards her. She bent her knees slightly and brought her sword up to meet the curse.

For an instant the sword glowed red, but it quickly returned to its original colour, and Hermione frowned slightly. She took a few more steps forward and let loose with a curse of her own, but Voldemort took a single step backwards and disapperated, leaving the curse to fly through the air and hit another Death Eater who was still focusing on the teachers. He flew through the air and landed with the other two who had been hit with Hermione's spells. With their leader now gone, most of the Death Eaters lost their stomach for battle, and also apperated out, leaving the ruins of Hogmeade behind.

As the woman turned around, Harry thought for a moment that he recognised her, but she couldn't be. Could she?

"Hermione?" he asked.

At hearing her name the woman before him smiled slightly. Her hair was blowing about slightly in the light breeze and her eyes burned with a fire that Harry had never seen there before. In a few moments it was gone, and replaced with her usually brown eyes. She took a step towards him and seeing he wasn't hurt smiled even more.

"Harry!" she said, "It's good to be back."

* * *

A/N – The word "No" in the last scene is dedicated to clueless33396. As always, thanks for the reviews everyone. In case you were wondering, there is a reason why I wrote about Hermione having four genes, only to have them taken away. You just don't know what it is yet. 


	11. Chapter 11 Revelations

Disclaimer: I don't own anything in the world of Harry Potter, that's J.K.Rowling's job. The plot is mine though.

Chapter 11: Revelations

"_Harry!" she said, "It's good to be back."_

_

* * *

_

"Hermione, where were you?"

"Yeh, we saw that you were gone from the Hospital Wing, and…" Ron trailed off.

Hermione sat in Dumbledore's office with Harry and Ron on either side of her. Dumbledore sat on the other side of the desk giving Hermione a curious look. She had asked that they went up to his office before she answered any questions; she wanted to explain what happened as few times as possible. She was now easily as tall as the others, and sat slightly forward in her seat, to avoid pressing the sword into her back. When Dumbledore had quietened the others, he was the first to speak calmly.

"Could you explain what happened to you Miss Granger? We were all getting worried about you. You certainly don't look any worse off for it." His smiled and looked at Hermione over the top of his glasses. He had seen exactly the same sort of changes occur to Christin when he was younger. It was all there; the confidence, the height, the magic. He already believed he knew what must have happened, but he had to be sure.

Hermione wasn't totally sure how to explain what had happened, she wasn't even sure she knew where she had been, but much to the amazement of the others she explained all she had been through, skipping over some of the more painful lessons. She didn't feel at all comfortable telling them exactly what she was capable of, so she glossed over most of the training sessions, simply saying that she was learning how to use magic to defend herself and others.

When she had finish, Dumbledore asked, "So Miss Granger, what do you want to do now?"

She thought for a moment and considered her options. She could possibly take some of her exams in Defence and Charms already, but she hadn't done anything on the other subjects. If she carried on as normal though, she might not be available if she was needed to act as Guardian. Then again, education is important…

"Well Professor, I would like to just carry on as normal if that's alright. There are still a lot of things I need to learn to pass the Newt exams and those are very important. I will just have to be careful in some of the more active classes. I would like to see if the Christin is alright as well now, I think he should be able to remember some of the things that I haven't learnt already."

"Christin?" asked Harry.

"Yeh, that's the Professors real name. He might want to go back to using it now he isn't the Guardian. Perhaps we should keep it quiet until then."

"That sounds like a good idea," replied Dumbledore, "just let me know if you need anything. I'm sure Madam Pomfrey will be pleased to see you are all right. She was most upset that some was taken out of the Hospital Wing under her care. Let me know if there are any changes to Christin."

He was sure that the Professor now had a good chance of recovery, but he didn't think he would be needed down there. Instead he just picked up some of the parchment on his desk and began reading, muttering something about the Ministry under his breath.

* * *

Down in the Hospital Wing, Madam Pomfrey was sitting in her office looking out at the Professor. He was still lying there on his bed, with absolutely no change at all. She was considering transferring him to St. Mungos if he carried on like this much longer. There was nothing else she could do for him here. She heard someone enter the room and got up to see who it was.

"Oh, Hermione! It's good to see you again! What happened?" She seemed to compose herself for a moment, and cleared her throat. "You… you shouldn't be in here at the moment, there is a patient who needs rest. You'll have to come back some other time."

"It's alright Madam Pomfrey," replied Hermione, "Professor Dumbledore sent me down here to see if there was anything I could do for him. I picked up some knowledge about how to treat this particular problem."

In truth she had no idea what she would do. Ilana had never told her anything about how to heal people, but she knew that some how she would be able to do it, she just had to figure out what to do. She walked slowly up to where he was lying, while Harry and Ron looked on in interest.

She closed her eyes and put her hands out so they were above the professor. She tried to imagine what he looked like and where he was, and after a few moments she began to see him in her mind. From this distance she could see that the injury to his shoulder wasn't anywhere near as bad as it had looked. Most of the darkness had already gone, and she could see it would have completely healed by itself in a matter of days. She carried on looking around the rest of him for injuries.

When she reached his head she instantly saw how much more complicated it was than the rest. She could see his mind was made up of thousands of golden strands, all linked together in a complicated web shape. Every few moments a small spark shot down some of these paths and she watched them work their way around. After following a few she noticed that some of the connections were broken and blackened at the end, as if they had been burnt apart. She gently tried to repair one of them with her mind, willing the ends back together and sealing them, but she had only managed to do the first one before she could feel her concentration slipping. She allowed herself to return her focus back to the Hospital Wing.

"I can see what the problem is," she said, recovering from the effort of concentrating for so long, "It's like parts of his mind have been damaged. Some connections have been broken, including some fairly important looking ones. I can fix it but it may take some time. It must have been the shock of releasing so much magic that damaged it. I will see what I can do."

With that she stretched her arms and neck a few times and then went back to work. Gradually she reconnected all of the broken parts, having to take a few short breaks in between, until she was left with what looked like the three most important damaged ones. They were thicker than most of the others, and were buried right down deep inside his mind. As she began to fix the first of them, she could sense movement happening around her, and just as she finished she was forced to break her concentration for a moment as the professor tried to sit up.

He looked to be in considerable discomfort; his face was all scrunched up, and his eyes were wide open. Madam Pomfrey rushed over to try and move her away from him, but Hermione held out her hand and prevented her from getting any closer.

"I have to finish," she gasped, forcing the professor back down onto the bed with her other hand.

She resumed her concentration, and continued to work on the two remaining strands. When the last one had finished she could feel the professor relax, and she gently took her hand away, allowing Madam Pomfrey to get closer to them. The professor lay there on the bed with his eyes open smiling slightly, before falling asleep, and it wasn't long before Hermione did the same.

* * *

A few days later the trio entered the Professor's classroom. He had told Hermione that he would rather his name remain a secret, so they all continued to call him Professor. Hermione had gotten a few strange looks concerning her changed appearance, but as soon as she could she had applied a few powerful glamour charms to hide most of the differences. The thing she couldn't change was her behaviour. She walked confidently from one place to another, more often than not leading the group around the corridors. She became quite content to sit in classes and not offer her answers all the time, but still answered correctly when asked.

As expected she was finding Charms particularly easy, and barely had to concentrate at all to get any of the spells to work. She wondered if this lesson would be as simple.

"Ok, settle down everyone," called the Professor from the front, "I know I missed one lesson the other day but it won't be a problem at all. Last time we tried out moving objects without using wands. I hope you have all been practising, because this time we are going to try and use as little movement as possible. If you still haven't managed the spells without your wand then don't worry, you can keep trying like that."

His eyes became slightly unfocused for a moment, and one by one feathers fluttered from his desk, one to each student.

"Now I want you to try and move these with as little movement as you can. You will really have to be in touch with your magic for this to work. Imagine the spell in your mind, along with all the actions, and guide the feather into the air. Off you go."

Hermione knew without a doubt she would be able to, and there was no point in pretending she couldn't, but she decided to wait a few moments and give someone else a chance to be first. She looked around the room.

"Look, look! It moved," Ron was saying to Neville, pointing down at his feather.

"Yeh, mine did a bit too!" Neville countered, glaring as hard as he could at his feather.

Neither of them seemed to be able to make it move again while anyone was watching, so not wanting to disagree everyone went back to their own. After a few more moments Hermione decided it was time to give it a shot.

She looked within herself and found the place her magic was, and took just a small amount. A big part of her training had been how to not over power spells. She focused that energy on the feather and gradually eased it into the air. After a few quick gasps from the people around her, the Professor appeared once again in front of her desk, and with a quick, "There you go," placed another eleven feathers down on her desk.

Resigning herself to it, she closed her eyes, took another small amount of her magic, and focused on the other feathers. It was a weird feeling. It was as if she could feel each feather separately, and control its every move. She had them all spin around her head in a circle, then made them all rotate slightly, and then finally follow each other around the room. She found that she enjoyed the feeling of being able to focus on more than thing, and being able to make things happen just by imagining it, so she was quite disappointed when the Professor asked her to stop for a while and let everyone else carry on.

She had a few more tries during the hour, but mainly stuck to doing smaller things, and practising being quicker at taking some of her magic and getting it to lift things.

The Professor clapped his hands, "Very well done, I think some people have nearly got it. Just imagine the sorts of pranks you could play on people if you could do this. Not that I'm encouraging that of course, but it may give some of you reason to work at it more. Hermione, could I have a quick word before you leave, and the rest of you can go now. See you next time. Oh and don't forget about that duelling contest. I will be putting up the information for it soon."

Everyone except Hermione got up to leave, and she walked up to his desk.

"Hermione, I have thought about what you told me happened to you, and I think I can help teach you a few things, but I won't be able to do so in lessons. You will have to come and see me one of the days after classes. How about Mondays? Maybe Wednesdays as well actually, I'm not going to be able to teach you anywhere near as quick as you learnt with Ilana."

"Yes Professor, that would be great thanks. Actually I have been meaning to ask you a few things."

"Ok sure I'll do my best," he said.

"Well firstly I was wondering if you still want me to be in this contest, because you know…" She waved her arms about vaguely.

The professor thought about this for a moment. "Actually I agree it probably isn't such a good idea. You can take my place instead," he winked.

Hermione didn't like the sound of that but carried on anyway. "If you don't have the Guardian magic any more, how coem you are still really good with these spells?"

The professor smiled, "I learnt how to do these things, so I haven't forgotten. It just means I have a lot less power now than I used to. You probably saw that I only moved one feather at a time. I probably could move a few more but it would have taken a lot more concentration. Certainly more that you need."

She nodded. "Professor, there was one other thing bothering me. About the Destroyer."

"Yes?" The professor said seriously.

"Well you managed to injure it right, so it would have to be someone else now?"

"Yeh that's true, someone else would have been trained by their mentor, like you were by Ilana. Nobody knows exactly what that teacher looks like. Only Destroyers have ever been there, and they aren't likely to tell."

"Well me and Ilana agreed that it was probably going to be Voldemort. He is evil enough and definitely craves for power, but when I came back down and saved Harry from him, he just ran. Doesn't that seem strange to you? Wouldn't he have attacked?"

The professor scratched his head. "It does seem that way… I have never known the Destroyer to just run from a fight like that, usually they stay at least until there is no hope of winning. You shouldn't have been able to shrug off one of his curses so easily either. So that means…"

"Voldemort isn't the Destroyer," Hermione finished.

"Correct. Someone else is…"

* * *

A/N – Sorry it has taken me so long to get this updated. I have been going through the most difficult week of my life and have been very stressed. I've tried to make it a longish chapter to make up for it though. As usually thanks to everyone who has reviewed, it really does make a difference. I do my best to reply to them all. 


	12. Chapter 12 Decisions and Training

Disclaimer: I don't own anything in the world of Harry Potter, that's J.K.Rowling's job. The plot is mine though.

Chapter 12 - Decisions and Training

"_Voldemort isn't the Destroyer," Hermione finished._

"_Correct. Someone else is…"_

_

* * *

_

Hermione entered the room cautiously, determined to do better in her second training session than she had in her first. Last time she had just entered the room normally, and so was caught completely off guard when the professor had launched a series of stunning charms at her from the far side of the room. Whilst none of them had completely knocked her unconscious, they were strong enough to completely throw her off balance and allow the professor to claim a victory for him. Once again the lights in the nearly empty room had been dimmed down slightly, and she held out her hand in front of her, trying to sense where the professor was. She sensed some movement from the far side of the room, and put up a fairly strong shield between the two of them, waiting to see what he would do next.

She had managed two steps forward before realising something wasn't right. It was more than enough chance for the professor to leap out of the shadows on the other side of the room and once again have her completely unprepared. This time however she had already conjured a shield and was able to move behind it before any of the spells could reach her. Before she could begin to retaliate, he lowered his wand and fully raised the lights.

"Not bad, not bad. I just put a small ball of magic over there in the corner. It was made to feel as much like a person as possible. There are a few things that worry me though."

"What's that?" Hermione asked.

"Well, to be honest, you should be wiping the floor me every time. No matter how much experience I have or what sort of tricks I pull on you, you should be beating me no problem."

Hermione didn't quite know what to say, so she just looked on and waited for the professor to explain himself.

"I've noticed you try your best to blend in and look exactly the same as you did before. We both know that when you started using the magic you changed slightly, and whilst you hide from that you aren't accepting who you are, and can't learn. With experience you can find ways of hiding it, but certainly not while you are learning. It's one of the reasons why you weren't supposed to come back here before completing your training."

"So what do you want me to do?"

"You need to stop hiding. Stop using the glamour charms, and allow everyone to know who you are. Make an announcement in front of the school if you have to, but pretending to be something you aren't isn't helping."

Hermione didn't like the sound of having to explain everything in front of the school. It was difficult enough trying to explain it to her friends. Sensing her discomfort, the Professor continued.

"You don't need to go into too much detail. Just briefly say why you have changed, what you have to do, and what you want everyone else to do. Couldn't be simpler! In fact, you could tell everyone just before the duelling starts next week. People will have other things to think about then as well."

* * *

Hermione was leading Harry, Ron, Neville, Ginny and Luna towards the Room of Requirement for the first of their extra 'lessons'. They had approached Hermione and asked her if she could teach them a few of the things she had learnt so they would be more ready to fight when the time came. She reluctantly agreed, but couldn't promise she would be any good at teaching. They were just a few corridors away when they heard a familiar mocking voice from behind them. 

"Well, well," Malfoy drawled. "If it isn't the mudblood leading a pack of Gryfindors. Seems the house has stooped to an all-time low. Looking for somewhere to practise you duelling? You are going to need it when we wipe the floor with your sorry Gryfindor behinds."

Apparently having learnt from past encounters he was accompanied by not only Crabbe and Goyle, but also by Parkinson and Zabini. They were all standing side by side, blocking the Gryfindors. In the past it had always been Harry who stood up to them, but now Hermione took an extra step forward. Malfoy seemed oblivious as to why.

"Excuse me Malfoy," said Hermione, "just step aside, we will be on our way and nobody will get hurt."

"What if I wanted someone to get hurt?" countered Malfoy, pointing his wand menacingly.

"Then some of us will." Hermione held her hands up in front of her, palms together, and then moved them apart as though separating something. Crabbe and Goyle instantly became attracted to the left hand side of the corridor, while the other Slytherins were attracted to the right. They all stuck so tightly they couldn't reach anywhere with their arms to free themselves.

Ignoring the muttered curses, Hermione walked between them and on to the Room of Requirement. They were just rounding the corner when they looked back and saw Malfoy prising himself off the wall. He seemed to think about whether to try his luck again, but thought better of it, and began helping the others off the wall.

A few minutes later they all stood together waiting for Hermione to start. She thought for a few moments before beginning.

"I'm not totally sure what I can do to help you to be honest, but Harry here seems to think that more practise can't be a bad thing, and that it should be my turn to do some teaching this time. So, I think the best thing to do to start with is to practise how to make the curses and hexes as strong as possible. The stronger the curse is, the more chance it has of getting past an opponent's shield.

The key is to try and put some emotion behind the spell. Oh, and of course while focusing as much as you possibly can. This is the difficult thing during a real duel. Anyone who can stay calm in the face of danger has a definite advantage. We really need some way of practising this safely…"

Hermione looked around the room and thought for a few moments, before five rather large boulders appeared around the walls of the room.

"I want you to use the spell '_Levitat' _on these stones. It isn't quite the same as the using levitating spell. This one just sends your target up in the air and back down again; there is no actual control. You will see how strong your spell is simply by watching how high they jump. I think it will be useful to see how using different amounts of focus, and different thoughts, can affect how powerful you are."

Before they all got started Hermione demonstrated the spell. It was on a slightly different scale to what the others would be doing though. She got all five of them thundering out a rhythm at once. She hadn't quite grown tired of showing off a little yet.

* * *

Up in the Slytherin common room Malfoy was furious. He had been publicly embarrassed in front of his friends, and now he was busy plotting his revenge. 

"We _have_ to win this duelling tournament," he said to no one in particular. "I'll show them who is the most powerful."

"But how can we?" Spoke up Goyle. "Granger just stopped all five of us."

Malfoy just turned and stared, causing him to go back to staring at his feet. Malfoy held his gaze for a few moments before replying, "We'll think of something. We're Slytherin."

* * *

As Hermione asked everyone to stop for a while, she reflected on what she had seen. She could understand what the Professor had meant when people were definitely split into different levels of power. She hasn't much time to compare the different levels before, but from what she could tell, Neville probably only had two genes, while the others had three. The strain was definitely showing on Neville's face, as he looked as though he had just gone for a long run. 

"Why don't you go and sit down for a minute Neville?" she offered, pointing to a chair behind her. "I'll just do a short demonstration again so you can catch your breath."

For a moment Neville looked offended at being singled out to take a rest, he really had been trying hard to keep up with the others, but then decided it was probably for the best. He took a seat and waited to hear what she had to say.

"There is another way to increase your power if you don't think you will be strong enough to get a job done. You have to have more than one person cast the same spell at the same time. You know that if a person is hit with multiple stunning spells then it can actually be fatal. Certain groups of people actually combine spells better than others. I wouldn't be surprised if we would go together quite well, because we have all been friends for quite some time. Individually I would be surprised if you could cause one of these stones to move half the length of the room, and even then it would leave you quite drained. Let's see what happens when the five of you try it together."

She quickly worked out that the best thing to do would be to put herself in the way so she could slow the stone down before it rolled into anything. She placed the quartet over by the far wall and moved the stone into position next to them. She then took up her place in the centre of the room and got ready to stop it.

"Right, give it a try when you are ready," she called.

After counting themselves in, they aimed their wands at the stone and shouted the banishing charm.

It took only a fraction of a second for Hermione to realise that she had been rather dramatically wrong in here estimates. It took only another fraction for her to register than there was now a big lump of stone moving towards her as if shot out of a giant gun. With her hands by her sides she decided that the only thing she could hope for was on such short notice was to get out of the way, so she took a quick step to the side and watched the massive stone whiz past her head like a meteor. Straight towards Neville.

Not possessing the quick reactions and decision making of Hermione he just sat there staring open mouthed. Luckily for him Hermione could react fast, especially in a crisis. With a quick shriek of 'Neville!' she apparated the length of the room, and appeared right next to his chair. She stuck out a foot and shoved, sending him and the chair sliding across the room. Unfortunately there was a minimum time needed to apparate, and then move Neville without injuring him, and this was almost exactly the time it took for the stone to cross the room, leaving absolutely no time for anything else.

The stone smashed into her side with an audible crack, and continued on, crashing her into the wall. The force was so strong that she was sent right into the mountain of bricks that made up an outer castle wall, and then a few seconds later a large portion of the wall crashed down, burying her even more. As the dust settled there was no sign of movement at all.

* * *

Up in his office the Professor was sat writing out the schedule for the duelling tournament. For a moment he thought he could sense something, but after waiting for a moment to see if it would happen again, he went back to his planning.

* * *

Dumbledore was also sitting up in his office, absently watching Fawkes. He definitely did notice the massive shockwave coming from somewhere within the school. He wasted no time in getting up and hurrying down the spiral staircase. In fact, if he had taken the time to look out of his window, he would have seen a few bricks falling from one of the walls of the castle.

* * *

A/N – This is probably the slowest update in the history of updating. I found this quite hard to write, especially after such a long gap. Everytime I went to write it, I just came up with a massive block. I'd be surprised if anyone is still reading! Hopefully when I have finished this block of exams in the next few days I will have more time to sit down and get this finished. I would really like to see it to the end. Thanks. Reviews are always nice. 


	13. Chapter 13 Announcement

Disclaimer: I don't own anything in the world of Harry Potter, that's J.K.Rowling's job. The plot is mine though.

Chapter 13 - Announcement

The teens just stood there, shocked by what they had seen, and waited to see if there was any sign of movement from under the pile of rubble. There was none. Neville was the first to react, and also a lot closer than the others.

"Come on! Help me!" he called. He scrambled onto his hands and knees and began to roll away some of the lighter stones. Snapping into action the rest of them joined in and they were soon all throwing stones aside, looking for where Hermione was buried. They hadn't moved more than half of them, before Dumbledore burst into the room.

"Professor!" Neville called, seemingly taking charge of the group. "Hermione is under here."

"Stand back," he replied, pulling his wand out of his pocket and pointing it at the pile of stones. As soon as everyone was clear, he muttered a few words, and all the stones started to roll slowly out of the way at once. As soon as Dumbledore ended his spell, they could all see a figure lying face down where the pile used to be. This was not the Hermione they were all used to seeing. This was the one who had saved Harry from the killing curse. Her hair had grown longer, and was now almost down to her waist. She no longer looked like the skinny girl who spent far too much time in the library, but she seemed every bit the powerful witch she was. Her school robes had been replaced by her plain white ones, and as usual, her feet were bare. Harry was the first to reach her.

"She's still breathing," he said, feeling relief and guilt wash over him. "I think she is just unconscious."

Considering what had just happened she looking in surprisingly good shape. There were no injuries at all that they could see but they decided that the best thing was to take her to Madam Pomfrey and make sure.

* * *

Voldemort sat on his large oak chair, looking around at his followers. He was growing tired of punishing them all for failing him, and was becoming more and more annoyed that the only plan he could think of was going to rely on someone other than himself. He was a considerably powerful wizard in his own right, and he knew without a doubt that Hermione shrugging off the killing curse, and then casually dealing with the most powerful blasting hex he could manage, should not be possible for any wizard. He had done a fair amount of research on the matter, and had reached a reluctant conclusion. 

"Severus!" he hissed, "I want you to drop hints to that old fool back at Hogwarts that I will be launching a full scale attack soon. We are going to take Hogwarts by force, and then nothing will be able to stand against me."

"But, but master?" snivelled Wormtail, cowering on the floor. "Surely it would be better to attack by surprise so they do not have chance to prepare?"

Seemingly realising his boldness, Wormtail began to slowly crawl backwards across the room.

"It isn't wise to question my decisions Wormtail," Voldemort snarled, standing up from his chair and pointing his wand straight at the cowering figure before him. The rest of the Death Eaters gathered there all subconsciously took a step backwards. They had all witnessed Voldemort's rage on more than one occasion and had no desire to be on the receiving end.

"However Wormtail," he continued, casually waving his wand from side to side, "usually you would be right. Did you not notice the mudblood girl who single-handedly thwarted our attack on Hogsmeade? I believe she may have inherited the power of the Guardian, and so her strength will surpass even mine for now. I would have no hope of victory. Hopefully word of our attack will spread to her opposite, the Destroyer, and he will aid us. We will fight side by side, and then just when victory is certain, I will take the powers for myself! Then truly no one will be able to match my power."

Voldemort just stood there and laughed his evil laugh, sending shivers down the spines of even the most hardened Death Eaters.

"However Wormtail, I cannot let your insolence go unpunished now can I?"

"Master please, no…"

"_Crucio_!"

* * *

The first thing Hermione noticed when she woke up was that she seemed to be floating. She turned her head around and saw that Dumbledore, followed closely by her friends, was levitating her along the corridor. For an instant she panicked and waved her arms around, before realising that she wasn't going to fall anywhere.

"Remain calm Miss Granger," said Dumbledore softly. "We are just taking you to the Hospital Wing."

"It's alright Professor, I can walk." She had no wish to be levitated all the way there, as the floating was making her feel even more ill. She rotated herself around until she was upright, and then planted her feet down on the ground, causing her to wince as pain shot across her back. Concentrating on the worst of the pain, she took a few deep breaths and focused her magic on it. For a few moments it felt warm, and then straightening up with a small cracking noise causing the others to wince, the pain was gone.

"See Professor, I'm fine," she said, rotating her back, showing that it no longer hurt. "I could just go back up to Gryffindor tower and … oh." She suddenly stopped as she noticed her appearance; wearing all white and not her uniform. Looking around she could see that a handful of people were starting to gather along the corridor to see what had happened.

"Perhaps it is about time you explained to the rest of the school what has happened," Dumbledore said, smiling slightly, "I can arrange for the school to be gathered this afternoon if you like?"

The words may have formed a question, but his tone left no doubt in anyone's mind that that was what was going to happen. Accepting her fate, Hermione nodded her head slightly.

"I'll do it."

Shortly after all the rest of the school entered the hall, staff and students, Hermione stood alone just outside the doors. She could hear murmurs within, probably caused by people wondering why Dumbledore would call everyone in the afternoon. No one could ever remember it happening before except on important school days. She stood up straight, pooled some of her magic into her hands, and strode confidently into through the doorway, throwing the doors open forcefully with a burst of light.

The heads of every student pointed towards her as she made her way down the whole length of the hall, her footsteps echoing loudly in the now silent castle. When she reached the front, she turned around to face everyone and started her speech.

"Some of you may have noticed over the past few weeks my magic has become quite a bit stronger than it was before. This is because I was given the power of the Guardian. That's basically it. I am to use this power to protect others and myself from evil and…" she waved her arms about vaguely, "other things. If anyone doesn't believe me, they are welcome to challenge me to a duel, but I will be performing an exhibition match against Dumbledore shortly after tomorrow's contest. I hope that will put your minds at ease."

As she was talking nobody moved. Nobody except a handful of Slytherins. The thing that mattered to them more than anything was power, and to suddenly have one of the Gryffindors claiming they were stronger than even Dumbledore was outrageous. No one seemed to notice the Malfoy hardly seemed to be paying attention, he just sat at his seat gazing straight forward as if he wasn't even interested. Pansy, the most outspoken of them, stood up.

"What makes you think we're going to believe that!" she shouted across the hall, "You can't just…"

"Miss Parkinson," started Dumbledore, but there really wasn't any need. Hermione just glanced across at the Slytherin, and with barely a twitch of her eyebrow, Pansy's mouth disappeared. Had this been a prank there was no doubt that this would have been very funny, but the seriousness of the situation, and the fact that people were still trying to figure out what was happening, meant that everyone remained perfectly silent. Hermione just walked calmly back down the length of the hall and out through the doors. As they slammed shut behind her, Pansy's mouth reappeared, and she fainted.

A/N – A short and fairly uninteresting chapter I know, but a duelling contest next!


	14. Chapter 14 Duels

Disclaimer: I don't own anything in the world of Harry Potter, that's J.K.Rowling's job. The plot is mine though.

Chapter 14 – Duelling Contest

Harry and Ron entered the Great Hall early to get good seats along with the rest of their year. The younger students had already completed their duels the day before, and today it was a mix between the 6th and 7th years, and the winner from yesterday. Luna happened to be the one who won from the younger years, which took almost everyone by surprise, and the vast majority believed it to be luck on her part. Harry wasn't so sure. He had taken note of all the spells that had seemed effective and practiced them with Ron afterwards. He was sure that most other people would have done the same though.

They took a pair of seats right in the middle of the front row and saw Hermione sitting at the top table with the Professors. She gave him a small wave, and he waved back. This year had been very strange to get to grips with. Hermione had been going down her own path and was spending less and less time with the two of them. Her magical power was nothing less than amazing, and Harry could only hope he managed to get stronger before he inevitably had to face Voldemort. More and more people entered the Great Hall, until practically the whole school was there, and the Professor stood up to announce the first matches.

"Welcome to the first Hogwarts duelling competition in a long long time. Hopefully soon we will have our first school duelling champion. Congratulations again to Luna who won yesterday, and good luck to everyone competing today. The first of the matches, drawn at random remember, will be Katie Bell against Padma Patil."

As they stood to take their places the crowd began shouting for which of them they wanted to win. With the match being a Ravenclaw against a Gryffindor it was fairly well split, with the Slytherins remaining quiet. Harry was going to take extra care to watch this, as he might end up facing one of them in future rounds.

"Ok, ready…" There was no turning your back to your opponent and taking a few paces away. It was far too likely that someone would curse the other in the back, so it was decided to just simply start when the Professor said to begin. "Begin!"

Padma was by far the quickest to let fly with a curse, which Katie quickly dodged. Padma was constantly throwing a fast stream of all different colour curses, forcing Katie to dodge or block for most of the time. When Katie would let of a curse though, it would seem a lot stronger, and Padma had great difficulty blocking. Eventually one of the curses managed to get through Katie's shield causing her to drop her wand. Thinking the match was over, Padma lowered her wand arm, but Katie quickly grabbed her wand back off the floor and stunned her before she knew what was happening. In the rules the student duels weren't over until someone was in possession of both the wands.

When Padma was revived she was somewhat annoyed at losing like that, but was silently relived she hadn't been hit with any of the nastier curses. Poor Dennis Creevey has both of his feet reversed by a particularly annoying Slytherin yesterday and would have been still in the hospital wing had it not been for his insistence that he be allowed to watch the matches today. He sat off to one side, safely out of the way of any more curses.

Harry noted to himself to remember that Katie was pretty strong with her shield and charms, but she was quite slow at using them.

"Next up, we have Draco Malfoy against Hannah Abbott!"

These Hannah stood up nervously as she watched Draco acting as bored as he could. With a yawn he drew his wand and pointed it lazily towards Hannah. Harry thought that Draco might be a little over confident, as Hannah had proved to be quite inventive with her use of unusual spells.

"Ready? Begin!"

As expected Hannah was the first to shoot, a leg locker curse, but Draco calmly stepped to one side and returned fire with a simple stunner. Not having chance to get out of the way, Hannah conjured a shield to block it, but the curse hit her shield she fell over backwards with a shriek.

"Is that the best you can do?" Draco mocked, watching her calmly as she staggered back to her feet again. "Oh well."

As Hannah was raising her wand again he fired another curse, hitting her on the shoulder this time causing part of her robes and skin to burn upon contact. It wasn't life threatening, so it was legal, but that was the first time anyone had seen someone use as painful a curse as that one. The younger years mostly kept to stunners and tickling charms.

Hannah dropped to the floor clutching her arm, wincing at the pain. Draco summoned her wand and then walked off the stage, leaving Madam Pomfrey to rush on and help her.

Harry quickly realised that despite how easily Hermione could push Malfoy around, he wasn't to be taken lightly.

"Erm, right. You alright there Hannah? Next we have yesterday's winner, Luna, against Harry Potter. Good luck!"

Harry winced slightly and took to the stage. He has been hoping for an easier first round than this. Luna had beaten everyone in the lower years, and could regularly hold her own against the older years in the DA meetings. He had seen her style before though, so was not at as big a disadvantage as some of the others.

"Ready? Begin!"

Straight away Luna started her strange movements. She would dart from side to side across the floor, seemingly at random, making her very difficult to hit. Harry fired a few stunners from far away, but they didn't get anywhere near to her. He needed to get closer. Raising a shield he cautiously stepped forwards watching Luna's wand carefully. He was vaguely aware that most of the audience was cheering for him. Luna wasn't all that popular with the other students. Slytherin were still laughing at Hannah.

All of a sudden, when Harry took one more step forwards, Luna began to shoot curses of her own. Harry was standing flat-footed, so had difficulty dodging the first, and the second nearly took out his shield. He managed to gain his footing, and fire a stunner back at Luna, but she had already conjured a shield and shot one back. They went on like this for a while, trading curses that hit each other's shield, before Luna suddenly stopped and looked to the side. She was almost straight away was hit with one of Harry's stunners, and fell to the ground unconscious.

Harry took her wand, and revived her.

"Hey, how come you stopped? I thought you had the upper hand there."

"I thought I saw a Snorkack…"

That was all she would say as they retook their seats.

Next were a few matches against people Harry had never talked to except in passing, until finally it was Ron's turn.

"Next we have Ronald Weasley against Gregory Goyle!"

Ron almost smiled to himself, muttering something about finally getting to beat the stuffing out of Goyle, and took to the stage. Without the backup of his friends, Goyle definitely looked nervous.

"Ready? Begin!"

Ron began with a stunner, and Goyle shot a nasty purple hex. Ron dodged, Goyle didn't. After Ron had collected his wand, he left the stage, allowing someone else to revive him. It was the joint shortest match of the day. Similar in length was Neville against Crabbe.

The rest of the first round passed quickly. Most of the Slytherins were now out, apart from Malfoy and a few of the seventh years, and most of the Gryffindors were still in. About half of the others were out. The Ravenclaws seemed to know the most different spells, but couldn't stand up as well in a duel.

Harry just about won the second round against Katie, but Ron, much to his disgust, lost against a seventh year Hufflepuff. Harry had to go against Neville in the round after that, and again won. He had trained against Neville enough to know his weaknesses.

At the same time, Malfoy was continuing his brutal duels. He had broken the arms of a seventh year Ravenclaw, and the nose of his opponent in the third round. In the semi-final, he was so busy cursing his opponent he didn't realise they were already unconscious. The Professor had to step in to call a halt to the duel before someone was seriously injured. Nobody was surprised when Malfoy and Harry had to duel in the final.

Harry stepped up onto the stage, and Malfoy continued looking bored even thought this was the final. Harry noticed that most of the people were still cheering for him, even though had Fred and George still been here they would probably have been collecting most of the bets for Malfoy.

"This will be the final match for today before the exhibition match. The winner of this will be the duelling champion of Hogwarts. Good luck, and remember, no dangerous curses." He said this while looking mostly at Malfoy.

"Begin!"

Harry began with the stunners much the same way as he had against Luna. He managed to dodge most of what Malfoy threw back at him. The ones that did hit him felt a lot more powerful than anything he had been hit with earlier. He had to recast his shield after each one. After a while Malfoy stopped firing back, and just held up shield charms. Getting annoyed, Harry stopped cursing.

"What's the matter Malfoy, forgot how to hex?"

"Nope," he replied. He waved his wand, but Harry couldn't see anything, and didn't feel affected. Harry fired another stunner, but Malfoy blocked it again. Malfoy fired another stunner, but this time it was way wide, and Harry didn't even need to move to avoid it.

"What the hell was that Mal…"

Harry awoke to see the Professor's face smiling at him, and heard the noise of the Slytherin crowd still cheering for Malfoy.

"Hello Harry. Mr Malfoy there conjured a small mirror behind you, which reflected the stunner onto your back. Most ingenious really."

Harry trudged off the stage, annoyed at losing to Malfoy of all people.

* * *

Hermione watched the stunner hit Harry from behind, and vowed she would hex Malfoy the next time she saw him, just to stop him getting too big headed. She was quite surprised at how much better Malfoy had been at duelling compared to their previous encounters. Perhaps in a controlled and formal environment like duelling, the purebloods had more experience. She was worried for Harry. He was having difficulty against even people in his own year, so he certainly wouldn't stand a chance against Voldemort, and if her suspicion was right, she wouldn't be there to help him.

She was rather nervous about this duel against Dumbledore. He hadn't lost an official duel in over 100 years, and many people considered him to be the most powerful wizard alive. In theory she should win, but he had the most experience. Once Harry had walked off the stage, she stood up and made her way onto the platform.

"And now," announced the Professor, "we have the exhibition match. Professor Dumbledore against Hermione. Take note of some of the methods they use, at it may prove useful to you at some point."

"Ready?" Dumbledore formally bowed to Hermione, and she very slightly did the same. "Begin!"

It was quite obvious from the outset that this was going to be a very different type of duel to the others. Dumbledore began by conjuring a swarm of bees, which Hermione quickly countered with a wall of fire, which Dumbledore had to freeze before they reached him. Hermione then started conjuring random objects like chairs and tables, before banishing them at Dumbledore. He countered this by transfiguring them into eagles and vultures, which then turned around of their own accord and attacked Hermione. The fake birds were easily banished.

Hermione focused on herself and created illusions that looked exactly like her, and they began to edge around Dumbledore to confuse him. He quickly pointed his wand at himself and muttered a spell, before firing a paralysing curse straight at the real Hermione. She had no idea how he did that, se would have to ask him later. The curse was a simple one to block though, so she banished her illusions as well.

Hermione again attacked first, and summoned two massive stone golems between them, and instructed them to attack. Dumbledore was able to blast them apart with his strongest curses, but didn't notice that Hermione had secretly conjured a third behind him. This one grabbed hold of both of his arms, pinned them to his sides, and lifted him off the ground. Being quite old, he didn't have the physical strength to struggle much and escape, but managed to twist his wrist around and jab it into the golem, making it crumble and collapse. He landed back down on his feet, though now he was quite obviously tired. Hermione looked fine.

She waited for a second to see if Dumbledore was going to continue, and this nearly cost her as he sprung into action and fired an impressive array of curses, so fast that even she couldn't pick out what all of them were. Deciding it was dangerous to try and block them all, she dodged a few, spun on the spot and disappeared. Dumbledore paused for a few moments, trying to think of a spell that would allow someone to disappear like that, but that was the time it took for Hermione to reappear behind him, and yank the wand out of his hand. Preferring not to be stunned, he instantly yielded.

There were a few scattered people applauding, but mostly people were in shock that Dumbledore had lost against only a sixth year student. The day had left everyone with something to think about.

A/N – Yeh! I liked writing this chapter!


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